(Further reflection on "The Abominable & The Honorable"--Sunday 18-Feb-2024)
If God were unjust, then who is just? Everyone! But since God is absolutely just, then who is totally unjust? Everyone!
Everyone was born a sinner and innately naive/foolish/wicked. Before knowing God's perfect law, we didn't know what truth is. So we measure our world with self-made "yardsticks" and weigh things with untruthful or false balance or an unjust scale. Thus, we perfectly broke God's perfect law in every unbelievable way. Christians sometimes don't believe this, because they only sometimes read the Bible, especially the Old Testament. I recalled one conversation with a believer who has been going to church for over twenty years, asked "Why do we have to read the whole Bible (Genesis-Revelation)? Why can't we just read what we want and use it as just a reference book?" People would generally or largely prefer one-minute Bible verse over a good chunk of "solid food" of God's word everyday. As a result, proof-text is a common mistake among religious/cultural/nominal Christians--church-goers who are NOT interested in building relationship with Christ and fulfilling His Great Commission, but to have a safe religion that serves their interests.
Now since God's law is perfect and we are imperfect, we break His law every time. What a miserable state we are in as a terrifying punishment is waiting for us at the end of our life on earth. Some say that we don't need to talk about hell. It's understandable, because we don't need to talk about sin. We then don't need to about God's judgment on sin. And surely we don't need to talk about Jesus Christ, who is just and died for the unjust, so that they can be justified by grace through faith in Him. The justified are the righteous. And the righteous are the redeemed, regenerated/born-again, a new creation in Christ Jesus. They are those who desire to put all the abominable ways of living (i.e. unjustness, pride, treacherousness, wickedness, godlessness) to death and begin to live an honorable life (i.e. justness, humility, faithfulness, righteousness, godliness) in the One who is both Lord and Savior, the Son of God and the Son of Man who fulfilled the perfect law, perfectly.
Now what? Wisdom is knowing that without believing, following, obeying, and living in Jesus, everyone is just in their own measurement or self-made rules, but unjust in every thought and action in the light of God's perfect law. In a nutshell, to be godly-wise is to be faithfully obedient to His word.
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Pastor Lap
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