Justice, Mercy and Grace

Justice, Mercy and Grace

We look around the world and we see a lot of things happening that we innately know are wrong. Injustices that are never righted. We see these things and we know its wrong. We long for justice, even the Bible agrees with this longing.

14  Justice is turned back,

and righteousness stands far away;

for truth has stumbled in the public squares,

and uprightness cannot enter.

15  Truth is lacking,

and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

The Lord saw it, and it displeased him

that … Isaiah 59:14-15

15 “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. Lev. 19:15

14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! Rom. 9:14

God is a God of justice yet thankfully He is so much more. He is a God of mercy and grace.

Lets give a quick and simple definition for these terms.

Justice – getting what you deserve 

Mercy – not getting what you deserve 

Grace – getting what you definitely don’t deserve (something good)

God is a God of all three but it is His mercy that brings us salvation.  God’s mercy is an extension of His love.

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Ephesians 3:14, 16-19 NIV

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”

Ephesians 2:4-5 NIV

“he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.”

Ephesians 1:5-6 NIV

God’s love is a mystery and surpasses our knowledge, but it is clear that His Love and Grace are linked.  Grace is an outflow of God’s love.  He has given us His grace because He loves us. We deserve God’s justice, even asking for mercy would be a stretch.  But God goes above and beyond, does He judge us guilty? No instead He has mercy of us and pays for our guilt.  He does not stop there, He then gives us Grace.  He adopts us and we become the children of the King.  He gives us life, and all spiritual blessings. We are entitled as sons and daughters to all that our Father has. We are joint heirs with our Lord.  So how does this affect us every day?

Well we see how our Father has loved us and the mercy He has shown us.  We are told to love as He has loved us.  Now here comes the sticky part.  Our innate sense of right and wrong.  The need to see justice done is never stronger than when we are the one offended.  Here is the issue, how often does someone in our family hurt us?  How do we respond?  And how should we respond?  Why we want justice! And if feeling especially spiritual on that day we may forgive and provide mercy to the offending brother or sister.  We think we have done well.  I have forgiven and cleared the account.  Yet that’s not were God’s Love stopped, the love of our Father goes beyond mercy.  How often do we stop at mercy and feel like we have done what’s right?  We have not.  God’s love demands, Grace!  We must go beyond Mercy and give Grace.  We must repay the wrong done to us by giving the offended what they do not deserve.  We must repay good for evil!

“Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”

1 Peter 3:9 NIV

It’s not an option, if we are to Love as God loves than we must give Grace as God gives.  God is generous and never with folds any good thing from His children.  So we also must give blessings in a generous way. Yes even to those who mistreat us, and of all places let it start in our homes.