Justice

“I [Yahweh] hate all your show and pretense—the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings. Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps. Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living. [Amos 5. 21-24]

Whoa, God really hates religion that is void of justice - void of true relationship with Him.

God wants "...justice, an endless river of righteous living."

It simply does not matter how much we go to church, how good our music is, how fun our children's church is, or how large our building fund is. God wants justice.

We would do very well then to understand what "justice" is! What is justice?

Justice has unfortunately become a word of various meanings. Wikipedia seems to believe justice varies from culture to culture. Merriam Webster defines justice with a little less of a cultural allowance and takes, what is certainly frowned upon today, a more conservative legal view of the word.

But what does God think justice is? Well, through the prophet Amos, it would seem through the wording presented above in the NLT that justice is "an endless river of righteous living."

The KJV arranges verse 24 like this: "But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." This, to me, sounds like justice has a very legal definition!

We should all be challenged to look for justice today in our world. I think we will be largely disappointed in our findings. But, in our quest to find justice, we should be encouraged to let justice be established.

Father, I realize that justice is grossly missing in much of our society today. And, what 'justice' we see, is really not justice, but man's attempt at living without You. Help us to return to true justice.