Justice cannot exist when the heart is bitter. I know this to be a true statement not because I have been able to point it out in the Bible directly, but because I know that, in my own heart, when there is bitterness there is a lack of drive to do justly. What is even worse is when the justice itself makes the heart bitter. There are three ways that this happens:
1) Bitter Selfishness – In the past, justice, for me, has been social time. My youth group is extremely cliqueish, and it is nearly impossible to get one or two people to do something unless everyone in his clique was doing the same. Essentially, what I am saying is that mission trips and outreach opportunities tend to fall more in the category of social goings on in SEEK. It is dangerous when we forget the purpose of our mission trip or outreach opportunity for this reason: it then becomes all about the self. Then when we are called to an act of justice as an individual, we become bitter that we are left to be just on our own. We feel like we are abandoned, when in reality, Jesus is standing right beside us. I mean, really, let use our brains here, what is the very end of the Great Commission? “I am with you always, to the very end of the age”. Our finite minds keep us from this reality and make us bitter about being “abandoned” to do justly on our own.
2) Bitter Frustration – One revelation that needs to happen before one can really do justly is that the most important act of justice that can be done by a human being is prayer. The Father is the only true just being, He is the only one that can act justly, so it is our job to cry out for Him to do so (Luke 18:7-8). Many times He chooses us to be the embodiment of His justice on earth, sometimes He just wants us to leave it up to Him. There are times when all we can do is pray and there are times when all He wants us to do is pray. In the moments when He calls us not to act outside of the place of prayer, bitterness can well up if we are not careful. When our prayers are not answered right away, it is easy for us to become frustrated. We need to guard our hearts so that bitterness does not result from this.
I am going to take this one step further, so if you are lost, you might want to skip this section and move on to #3. As I said before, there are times when the Father calls us to “just pray”. There are also times when He calls us to “just pray” despite the fact that there is something else that we could do. This is a test of faith. When this happens and our prayers are not answered within our time frame, we become extremely frustrated and bitterness is susceptible to leak into our hearts. We are offended that the Father has withheld from us the solution and asked us to pray. When we are bitter about this, it shows in our prayer life. We cannot let this bitterness overtake our heart to the point where we are unable to pray in faith anymore. This is an extremely dangerous place for us to be.
3) Bitter Blasphemy – This could also be classified as “bitter selfishness”, but I a) I already used that one, and b) this one sounds cooler and fits better. It is easy for us to be offended when justice is given or not given outside of what we think is deserved. I call this point “bitter blasphemy” because the bitterness is rooted in the idea that we are omniscient when, in reality, only the Father truly is. We think that we know when justice is deserved (or not deserved), when really it is only the Father that searches and knows the hearts of men (I Chron 28:9, Psalm 7:9, Rom 8:27, Rev 2:23). It is easy to become bitter when the Father asks us to do justice to one that we believe does not deserve justice, but we cannot let a bitter heart take over lest our act of justice become an act of injustice.
Essentially, we are desperately in need to the heart of the Father. If we have His heart, we are always considering others above ourselves (Phil 2:3), thus eliminating our bitter selfishness. If we have His heart, we can know the hope to which He has called us (Eph 1:18), thus eliminating our bitter frustration. And, if we have His heart, we know that He is the righteous God that searches minds and hearts (Psalm 7:9), thus humbling our bitter blasphemy. We cannot be obligated to do justly, it needs to be a conviction and desire in our hearts to be like the Father. He is the only one that can clean our hands and purify our hearts. We need to let Him cleanse us of all bitterness before we can act in righteous justice.
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