Who is God? Part 4

The Rightness of God

The last attribute of God listed in Jeremiah 9:23-24 that we will now look at is His righteousness.

"but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight," says the Lord."
(Jeremiah 9:24)

God tells us in that verse that in this earth, in this world in which we live, in our lives, in each day and through each circumstance we face, He exercises righteousness. And what is righteousness? Simply, He is right.

All the time.

There is nothing that we face, no disappointment, no heartache, no darkness, that He is not, and was not prior to it, aware of it, in control of it and fully right for allowing it to happen.

I hear some gasps. I hear some of you say, “but…but you don’t know what I’ve been through!” Maybe I don’t. And yet I do. We all do in one way or another. We all have faced our dark times and wondered why. We’ve wondered where God was. Was He there at all? Does He know that I’m suffering? Doesn’t He see me?

Oh, yes. He sees you. But make no mistake, He doesn’t see you from afar. He is right next to you. In those moments when you feel most alone, the Lord is sitting with you, weeping with you, sharing in your pain.

It is fully within His power to end the trial at any moment. Or to even have never allowed it to happen at all. But sometimes, instead, He allows it to happen. And He sits with us.

Why?

The short of it: I don’t know. The specific reasons most times are on a need to know basis, and it seems that we just don’t need to know.

The long story to the question of why is a grand one. And we each have our own story. But the basic story line goes like this: it is of a righteous God pursuing one who is lost with a love and a fervor that is unmatched. He woos each of us until we are His children. And then the avenue has been opened for Him to speak to our hearts. And so He lovingly teaches us and takes us from immaturity to maturity, from childish and undisciplined to understanding and teachable and usable. He makes us fit to serve in the kingdom of God as we adopt our Father’s attributes of loving kindness, justice and righteousness.

And sometimes we are only quiet enough to hear Him speak to our hearts when we are in the valley.

Alone. Save One.

As you are on your journey with the Lord in this life and you face those hard times and you remember that God is a righteous God, don’t forget that He is not only righteous. He does not exercise that attribute independently from the others. They are always used in conjunction with one another. Along with His righteousness He also shows His lovingkindness and His judgment along with the rest of His eternally-faceted nature that is always good, always faithful and always purposeful and set on our best.

So. There we are. The very tip of beginning to understand Who our God is. We now have the rest of our lives, one day at a time, to try to get to know Him better, to love Him and to serve Him and to glory in our Lord. Will you use this life to glory in things that won’t last, or will you glory in the One Who was, and is, and is to come?

“For they who are according to the flesh mind the things of flesh, but they who are according to the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace..”
(Romans 8:5-6)

“I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days..."
(Deuteronomy 30:19b-20a)

"Jesus said to him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.."
(John 14:6a)

I so pray that you choose Life.