Return to Justice

Micah. 6:8 nkjv He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you, to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

There are three aspects in this passage of scripture to seeing the world from God's point of view, and we need to keep all these three in clear focus so that the needs of those around us will not be ignored or these needs won't so overwhelm us so as to cause us to run from them. We need to keep these three aspects in mind so that we are able to see how we fit into God’s plan for our life and what He would have us achieve in the kingdom in our lifetime.

The three things that we have to keep in focus are, act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God. As great and as important these aspect are most of us are confronted or are often faced with trying to handle the difficulties of life and we are trying to act in a way that does not affect others and then we cast our selves on the mercy of God recognising that with out Him we have nothing. In the midst of difficulties justice, mercy and humility are often not at the for-front of our minds or life and the reason could be that we don’t see the benefits that can be derived form these difficult times.

How many of us use so much energy trying to avoid problems, troubles and things we deem unpleasant, the truth is deep with in the soul of trouble there is a hidden growth hormone called character development and it will be a blessing for all of us if we embrace it willingly and honestly.

When we embrace trouble honestly and with the right heart it then has a way of making us reach beyond our small, imposed limitations and propels us to a level of accomplishment in life we may not of thought possible.

Various trials and tests are never sent to us, so we can crash, burn and fail, but rather to educate us about the weak areas of our lives. These trials reveal the Power Of God that is available for the asking. God forces us to come to the end of ourselves, so we can be cast upon Him; this way He is glorified,

When we embrace the hormone of difficulty it cause us to see what others face and because we are and have walked thru hard times it may release compassion in our hearts and as we respond to that compassion and look to find a way to help. Compassion is not some superficial or romantic feeling; it is a gut wrenching sense of the needs of others that motivates us to action.

To do justly our perspective has to change for it can be characterized by our self protective feelings we have to break free and see how Father sees people with compassion. Compassion is not some sort of nice feeling; it is a heart rending insight into the needs of others that forces us to act. Compassion will change our attitude toward people. Compassion involves discomfort and inconvenience. It is always easier to stay in our warm cocoon of Christian fellowship than to take the time and effort to reach out to those in need right under our feet.

Amos 5:23 -24 nkjv, Take away from Me the noise of your songs, For I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments. But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream.

Ezek 16:49 nkjv Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

Second thing that is required of us is to have mercy. Again like compassion mercy will also give us a clear vision of ourselves as God's workers. The New Testament uses several words to describe Christ's followers (e.g. labourers, servants, soldiers, stewards, ambassadors), but they all imply that we are at the disposal of a superior to fulfil a purpose. We all have a responsibility to work in the field to reach the poor and as we do it brings its own reward.

Psalm 41:1-3 nkjv. blessed is he who considers the poor; The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive, and he will be blessed on the earth; You will not deliver him to the will of his enemies. The Lord will strengthen him on his bed of illness; You will sustain him on his sickbed.

When Paul and Barnabus were recognised as having the call on their lives for apostolic ministry by Peter, James and John they put only one requirement on them as they went about their ministry and that was that they would not forget in the busyness of the work the very reason they were called to the ministry and that is to reach the poor.

Gal. 2:10 they desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I also was eager to do.
James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
Prov. 21:13 whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be heard.

The third thing that is required is to walk humbly with our God in other words focusing on the Lord has to be our imperative.

Walking humble means giving up our independence, this is the disease of the 21st century, we fiercely want to do our own things our way in our time and because of it we have a hard time accepting the concept of Lordship because it means giving up our independence. We will never reach the poor and the needy when you decide the out come, There is a plan that Father has for all of us so what has to be done rather than we decide we need to see what God has se set out for us to do. I believe in our time for our church it is to reach as many disenfranchised children as possible. Turn the hearts of the fathers to the children as Malachi says.

Proverbs 22:9 nkjv He who has a generous eye will be blessed, For he gives of his bread to the poor.

The people around us, near us, beside us at work or on the ferry or bus it is not enough to just reach into our wallets as good as that is, let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, what the poor around us need is our hearts to love them. So, let us spread our love His love everywhere we go and in every thing we do.

Proverbs 19:17 nkjv He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and He will pay back what he has given.

Return to Abiding Ps 15:1-5

Psalm. 15:1 Lord, who shall abide in your tabernacle? Who shall dwell in your holy hill?

I believe that we as a church have to take serious the need to return to the place of abiding with God and especially with each other. The challenge to the modern Church as it struggles to be relevant to its generation is not to compromise its core values or moral values in its deep compulsion to be result orientated.

The question that we need to ask ourselves in this success orientated world is, have we given in to the pressure to look good in the eyes of man rather that God?

Psalm. 127:1 Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman watches but in vain.

God wants us to have a relationship with Him based on a knowledge of Him that would produce a holy awe of his grace, power, love, mercy and that this relationship would produce a holy fear of loosing any part of that fellowship with Him. This holy fear would hold us in and stop us from modifying our value and moral system.

With the pressure to achieve or to reach the goals or results that have been placed out there in front of us we will allow these pressure to either cause us to grow and press in more to God and our relationship with Him or we will be forced to compromise our value system. The pressures will cause us to go forward or to revert back to what we are familiar with. When the pressure was too much for Peter and he compromised his value system and denied the Lord, the bible says that he went back to what he was familiar with and that is fishing.

Holy fear of loosing any part of our relationship with God will cause us to look at these pressures, these challenges of life as an opportunity to grow and mature in the things of God the things of the kingdom.

1Corinthians. 13:11 when I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

When we put away childish things we come to a place where we want to do life right and where we want to please the Lord above all the temptations that are presented to us to get results at any cost. Childish things causes us to only look at what we need where as maturity causes us to look at what God wants done.

God is looking for integrity in this relationship with him and with others but it has to be measured by his word not by the implementation of man's value system. You can feel like you have integrity until you measure it by the Lord's standard which comes out of relationship. Now pleasing God may not be what your flesh is lining up to do especially when you consider what Jesus says.

Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.
Matthew 16:25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

So the question that was posed by the psalmist was! Who may abide? We are here in church today worshipping the Lord and in all that we do we must not forget that we are here by permission or invitation of the Father. Jesus said that the Father draws us and then He places us in His body.

John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
1Corinithan 12:18 but now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body, just as he desired.

One of the great challenges to the church in general is to live up to this word abide. Who may abide, or who may live with in such a way that they will share their life, share their joy and sorrow and allow those they share their life with to work through the issues of life so that they can see Christ formed in them?

With so many different denominations and churches today it is far easier for some one to run than resolve the issues of life and there by they never learn to abide and enjoy the freedom that they can have in Christ.

Who may abide? That was the question posed by the psalmist. In response to this question a number of issues were presented by the Lord that need to be resolved in relationship to Him and the people of God or the family of God we are knit with in order to bring about this abiding.

Note the issues; walking uprightly, work righteously, speaks the truth in our hearts, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Backbiting must go, love the neighbour and don't give them a hard time, evil is not tolerated, there must be honour in the house of the Lord, we must keep our word, do not expect rewards because we have helped some one and there are to be no bribes.

Psalm 92:13-14 those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing.

I don't care what you call the church or what church it is, none of us can get this right unless the church is led by the Holy Spirit, for it is He who shows all things and reveals all things to us of Jesus especially grace and truth and it is He that will lead us in these areas if we allow Him. The natural man wants to control all things even his religious experience but the spirit man embraces the one that will lead into all areas of truth. The Holy Spirit helps us to come into the place of abiding with God and each other. Truth will point to what is wrong and present a solution and grace will cover and restore as if nothing happened.

One of the challenges of abiding and there are many is how we treat what belongs to other people that is their property, their family, their things and their reputation. Jesus put a lot of stock in how people were faithful with what belong to others.

Luke 16:12 And if you have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?

The way of the kingdom is truth and grace which is fulfilling in others what Jesus wants fulfilled in them and as we abide and are faithful with what belongs to others we then in turn get what is ours and no one can stop it. Abiding brings the issues of the heart to the surface and allows adjustments and healing. In Luke 16 we see three areas that abiding will expose.

Luke 16:10-11 He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore you have not been faithful in the un-righteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?

How diligent are we about handling other people’s property, how diligent are we about financial matters, how diligent are about the little things in life. When we are diligent about these matters the kingdom is expanded and it makes abiding very pleasant.

Psalm 101:6 My eyes will be on the faithful of the land, That they may dwell with me. He who walks in a perfect way He will serve me.