Voice of the Orphan Blog

Be Free to Seek Justice

By Kerry Hasenbalg
“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” -John 8:36

To whom are we specifically called by God to administer justice?  God is often quite specific, and in this case He most certainly is.  “Defend the poor and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and needy” (Psalm 82:3).  God has been our example: “He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing” (Deut. 10:18).  “I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted and justice for the poor” (Psalm 97:2)  “The Lord who executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed; Who gives food to the hungry and give freedom to the prisoners” (Psalm 146:7).  God tells us in Isaiah 1:17, “Learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.”

For those who have spent time in orphanages, nursing homes, prisons, and on the streets in the lands of the poor and needy, you are acutely aware that our brethren are bound and need those who are truly free to come and free them from their bondage.  But if we are so mired in our own pain, wallowing in our own hurts and refusing to entrust them to God, we are of no use to the bound because we ourselves are still emotionally bound!

It is those who are free who can help to free those who are bound!  These are the ones who can truly succeed in justice ministries.  My husband often says, ‘Hurt people hurt people.”  Likewise, free people free people!! 

The Word says, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).  May we set aside our own personal hurts, giving them to God to take care of them in His time and His way, and receive God’s gift of freedom so that we may be free to give freedom to others who are bound!  May we who have obtained mercy from the God we have wronged, give mercy to those who have wronged us.  May we who trust our own injustices to a just and powerful God, seek justice for those who are still oppressed!

We desire to be men and women of wisdom, not modern-day hypocrites like the Pharisees. And God has told us, “The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17). The Lord told the Pharisees that although they paid their tithe, they neglected the weightier matters of the law:  “justice and mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23).  My we not neglect the weightier things of God!

Humble Mercy

By Kerry Hasenbalg
“For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy.  Mercy triumphs over judgment.” -James 2:3

If we were honest about the sin in our own lives, we would long for God’s mercy over all things.  The degree to which we humble ourselves and recognize the reality of our own sin is the degree to which we have the wisdom of God to know our profound need of heavenly mercy! “To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him.”  (Daniel 9:9). 

May we cry out as David cried out to the Lord, “Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions; According to your mercy remember me, for Your goodness sake, O Lord.” (Psalm 25:7)  “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your loving-kindness; according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions” (Psalm 51.) 

The promises of God to those who show mercy as He has shown mercy are worth the effort.  “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). “He who follows righteousness and mercy finds life, righteousness and honor” (Proverbs 21:21). 

“Forgive us our trespasses, AS WE forgive those who trespass against us” (Matthew 6:12).  In reciting this prayer of our Lord, we are either freeing ourselves or indicting ourselves.  We are in essence asking God to show us the kind of mercy that we are showing to those who have sinned against us!  “For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy.  Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:3).

I suppose there is nothing unbiblical about desiring to see wrongs made right, even the ones under which we have suffered, but I am learning that it is really not my job to right them.  I have also come to learn that my own opportunities for showing mercy are found primarily in the times when I have been personally wronged.  To give forgiveness, prayer and love to those who have treated me unjustly is for me to truly understand and love mercy.  But what can compel us into such acts of mercy?  Humility!!  When we understand the character of God and our own state before God, we will be compelled to show such mercy to others.  “And he said, ‘He who showed mercy on him.’  Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’” (Luke 10:37)  “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renew of the Holy Spirit.” (Titus 3:5)

Letting Go of Personal Injustices

By Kerry Hasenbalg
“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.” –Leviticus 19:18

I have long thought of myself as a person of justice.  But God has been revealing to me that my notion of justice and His are quite different.  First of all, I have come to realize that I am too preoccupied with personal injustices that I have suffered, and I am not concerned enough about the injustices faced by others.  How much of our time is spent thinking about how we have been wronged by those around us as opposed to the time that is spent seeking justice for the wrongs faced by our brethren?   The Word actually teaches that we are to leave the injustices we personally face to God for the avenging, “letting them go” in prayer, and actually looking for opportunities to have mercy on those who have hurt us. 

Being misunderstood, slandered, wrongly accused, discounted, lied to, or passed over makes me long to be avenged, and, by itself, this is not a wrong thing to desire.  But God does not call us to waste our time in self-pity, allowing these things to consume us and overpower our spirits; but rather we are to entrust these wrongs to the God we can to have His way in His time on our behalf. We are to believe that He will take up our cause as He sees fit. He actually go so far as to tell us to “bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse…Repay no evil for evil…Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to My wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.  Therefore, ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink;’” (Romans 12). 

If we will truly obey God in this way, believing that vengeance is the job of our loving Shepherd, He promises to “Prepare a table before [us] in the presence of [our] enemies and that goodness and mercy shall follow [us] all the days of [our] lives”  (Psalm 23).  So, if we will believe and trust and wait on our God to take care of the injustices we personally face, then we will be free in every way to take up the cause of those to whom God has called us to seek justice. 

A God of Justice and Mercy

By Kerry Hasenbalg
“So you, by the help of your God, return; observe mercy and justice, and wait on your God continually.” –Hosea 12:6

God is a God of justice.  Psalm 37:28 and Isaiah 61:8 both remind us that the “Lord loves justice.” Psalm 89:14 says, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne,” and Deuteronomy 32:4 declares, “For all His ways are justice.” 

God is also a God of mercy. “For you, Lord are good and ready to forgive, and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon you.” (Psalm 86:5) “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy.” (Psalm 145:8).  And Micah 7:18 says, “[God] delights in mercy!”

How can God be simultaneously just and merciful? Justice requires reward and punishment according to acts committed, but mercy is the withholding of punishment for wrongdoing and the giving of rewards when they are not merited. It is not that sometimes God is one, and sometimes God is the other; He is necessarily both.  And He calls us to be both. How can we act and live justly and mercifully at the same time? We often feel that we are stuck with one or the other. 

For God to be a God of justice and still show mercy to His sinful children, it was necessary for someone else to bear the burden and punishment of that sin. God’s justice and mercy were coupled in the person of Jesus and joined together as the beams of the cross.  So, for the love of Jesus, in return for what Christ has done for us by taking on the just wrath of God for our sins and the sins of others (1 John 2:2), may we now show mercy to others, just as He has called us to do.

We are called, as His chosen people, to be like Him in these ways.  “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). The Lord exhorts us through Zechariah 7:9 by saying, “Execute true justice, show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother.” And in Hosea 12:6 we understand how we are able to comply with this command: “So you, by the help of your God, return; observe mercy and justice, and wait on your God continually.” 

We cannot easily reconcile mercy and justice, much less understand how to live in them both at all times. So we must begin by waiting on our God, and we must continue to wait on our God. It is only by His power and with His guidance that we will be able to exercise His mercy and be agents of His justice as we venture out to serve and love in this broken and hurting world. 

God’s mercy may have met His justice in the person of Jesus, but Jesus never left us a formula or comprehensive set of rules to follow in order to learn how to apply justice and mercy. Even the example of Jesus isn’t very helpful when it comes to the intricate and complicated day-to-day realities we face when dealing with the issues of justice and mercy.  It is a daily leading we need, for rules, formulas, and even examples are not really the way of Jesus. His command was a simple one: “Follow Me.”