Lots of people talk about social justice and what’s wrong in the world.
Justice is important to God too. It’s so important that how to live justly is a consistent theme throughout the Bible. Following Jesus means we have to know Him, and part of knowing Him is knowing what’s important to Him. So if it’s important to God, it should be important to us.
In spending time reflecting on what God says about justice, it is our hope that your heart will resonate with God’s to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. It’s no easy task, but it’s a worthy calling. As we apply God’s heart of justice, we’ll see ourselves and others changed as the kingdom of heaven comes to earth.
All scripture passages have been taken from the Life Application Study Bible NIV, Tyndale/Zondervan Publishing House
Day 16
In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Kislev. The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melek, together with their men, to entreat the Lord by asking the priests of the house of the Lord Almighty and the prophets, “Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”
Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me: “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills were settled?’”
And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’
“But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry.
“‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land they left behind them was so desolate that no one traveled through it. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.’” Zechariah 7:1-13
- What does this narrative tell me about God?
- What does this tell me about people and myself?
- How does it clarify my view of God, Jesus and myself?
- What needs to change in my life in order to live in obedience to this passage?
- Given those who I am in a relationship with, who might be interested in knowing this too?
