Thursday, September 15, 2011

Worship the Lord for His Justice

Before you continue please stop and read Psalm 96 as that will be the passage for today.

A wonderful reminder to worship God, to celebrate Him with a healthy fear. Not because we are to run away scared, but because we are to be in awe of His greatness. We are to acknowledge His all powerful ability as creator, and also as the judge. As the one who judges, we celebrate because God always judges with full equity and a wisdom that goes beyond our understanding. We worship Him and praise Him because of this justice that He enacts in His judgement.

Let all creation rejoice before the LORD, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness.
Psalm 96:13 (NIV)

We worship and celebrate because we can trust Him fully in His judgement. He will never condemn the righteous. He is faithful and always judges properly and will not be swayed by the opinions of mankind. The problem is that no one is righteous (read Romans Chapter 3) and so humanity will be receiving condemnation from the righteous judge. We all know that we have sin, we are not perfect, we do things we should not do. Even the smallest point of selfishness and pride is grounds for our condemnation. We are all doomed. We are, as Jonathan Edwards put it, "sinners in that hands of an angry God". This does not sound like a reason to rejoice or worship?

But there is a reason to celebrate and worship. Jesus came, and took on the condemnation pronounced by the judge so that you do not have to. All you have to do is recognize your plight and repent of your sinful, selfish ways. Then you need to make Jesus your Lord, give Him control of your life, He paid the price for you and you owe Him everything. Now we celebrate because we will be judged based on the righteousness of Jesus, and He being God was 100% righteous and without sin. So we can celebrate because of this but also because all of those who refuse Jesus and His work, they will be condemned. Those who choose their own selfishness and sinful ways will be judged accordingly. This may sound horrible but when you really think about it, we should celebrate justice. God's justice is always appropriate and correct. When God acts on His justice, we do not celebrate others "doom" but rather God's continued revealing of His power and majesty. Remember it is not as if there is no opportunity for the people around us to receive Jesus. We are all actively sharing our faith right?

hmmm ... maybe there needs to be some prayer of repentance as well? If we are concerned about people having to receive condemnation from God, then we should be motivated to share with them about Jesus.

So let us share the Gospel, and worship the God of all justice.

Preacherman