Is Your Justice, Just?

Is justice important to you? Are you frustrated when you hear that someone has been successful in avoiding the punishment their actions demand? Does it affect your spirit when you do not receive the rewards or recognition you believe you have earned? I believe we have all experienced that feeling of discontentment many times in our lives.

I was reading in Acts this morning, and a statement made in the eleventh verse of chapter twenty-five really jumped off of the page at me. Paul said to Festus, “For if I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die:” Wow!  What a statement!  Paul is demanding that justice be done in his life, and if death is what the law deems necessary, then he sides with them and will gladly go to the grave. Paul knew the law. He had been instructed by Gamaliel, the leading expert in the law, as a young man. He had spent his entire adult life preaching the Word of God. There was no question in his mind, he had done nothing worthy of death; however, his stand for justice was in no way hindered by its direct affect on him.

When justice requires punishment for ourselves or for our family, do we still support it without exception? I submit to you, if we only support justice when it applies to others and not when it applies to you or your family that is not just.

If you’re a parent, realize that guarding your children from what they deserve is not going to prepare them for the reality of life. Furthermore, giving your children rewards that they do not deserve will cause the same character paralysis. “The participation trophy generation” has no understanding of justice, and this has produced a generation of entitled, over-grown children. I plead with you; examine your perspective of justice. Is your justice just?