Mercy continued

This thinking through the concepts of  justice and mercy wasn't new, just the direction it started to take. It started as an essay question a long long time ago An essay comparing mercy and justice, and from memory I put up a good argument for their inter-relatedness... that justice in a way is mercy ...and mercy is brought about by justice.  Maybe its time to admit I got it wrong. Maybe very wrong....

The demand for justice is the recognition of the good and evil, the human need to present a case..and the sense of evil. 

You see, I get that forgiveness is redemptive, not just for me but for the other person, we sin, we hurt each other because we hurt, are scared, are insecure, and God would show His love and heal us - that's what the cross is about. That's mercy...mercy goes way beyond Justice, and well mercy, forgiveness, and grace are God's gifts to us through the cross.

For me, genuine forgiveness is to ask God to go further and grant the healing that those who hurt us need in order to be who God created them to be - literally to bless them in the face of what they have done, ~ redemptive mercy.

In face of the call to bless those who cursed me I needed to set aside my "right" to justice.

Knowing what is right and wrong, is important, doing right not wrong to others is to be upright, but choosing mercy over justice is what God in his wisdom offered us in the Garden, and redeemed for us on the Cross. Its the split between love and law, it is the definition of grace.

 We will always need to set aside my right to justice in favor of God's desire to show each and all of us His mercy, redemption, grace, love ~ in short to give us life. To do so is to follow Jesus, to be renewed in His image, to know His ways to feed once more from the tree of life, and not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To be redeemed.