Love AND Justice

I will sing of your love and justice, LORD. I will praise you with songs. [Psalm 101.1]

But before the verse above, I read this:

Rise up, O God, and scatter your enemies. Let those who hate God run for their lives. [Psalm 68.1]

Everyone wants to talk about God's love, but few want to really comprehend His justice! It is God's justice that makes disobedient folks run for their lives!

It worries me greatly that modern Christianity has so easily adopted doctrines of suffering and difficulties without considering for a moment that perhaps suffering and difficulties are the result of our having disobeyed or betrayed God. Instead, powerless preachers declare God's sovereignty in the midst of tragedies with no hint of the possibility that those tragedies are the result of sin and disobedience. Why is this?

I don't care what isolated scriptures these powerless religious people point to. The overriding and consistent character of God as presented throughout the entirety of the Bible (not just isolated scriptures whose meaning is vague at best) declares God as a God of love AND justice!

What's more, because it wasn't enough for man to understand God through His Law and Prophets, God sent His Son in the flesh to demonstrate God's character and His purpose for mankind. Jesus NEVER put suffering or trouble on anyone that was seeking Him. The only instance that comes to my mind where Jesus did anything towards people besides "heal" was the time when a riotous crowd was blinded long enough for Jesus to escape their grasp.

Suffering and difficulty are not for God's obedient children! I would rather repent for something I had no clue about than to accuse God of such a contradictory action of random punishment (because that's what suffering and difficulty are all about - yes, read the book of Job - Job had to REPENT in the end because he was WRONG before God).

No, I do not understand as much about this topic as I would like. But I am offended by powerless proclaimers of "God's Word" who make God out to be a God of love and random punishment! That's just absurd! I am much more content to think I must have brought my troubles upon myself (if I didn't actually know why punishment came) than to accuse God of something totally outside His character of LOVE and JUSTICE!

Relative to Psalm 101.1, I do not hate God, therefore there is no need for me to run for my life!

I have only read the entire Bible through just under twenty times. I have however read bits and pieces of it since I was a child. It is possible I am missing something. But, it will have to come as a complete blind-side surprise to me at this point because the more I read the Bible, the more I see God's character and consistency and the more I am convinced that we have erred greatly in excusing ourselves in the midst of troubles and simply shrugging off our difficulties as some random lesson from God as if we do not need to repent!

Okay, I will step down now... May our eyes be open to the fullness of God's Word and His character as presented throughout the pages of the Bible.

Father, give me eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to understand Your good and perfect Word (because I know from Jesus that it is entirely possible to miss it).