December 1, 2010
Truth Connections
Devotions for Parents on the Go
Value What God Values,  Part Two: The Reason
Background Passages: Isaiah 61:1-11
Today's Focal Passage:

8 For I the LORD love justice; I hate robbery and injustice; I will faithfully reward them    and make an everlasting covenant with them. 9 Their descendants will be known among the nations, and their posterity among the peoples. All who see them will recognize that they are a people the Lord has blessed.

Isaiah 61:8-9, HCSB
Justice for All?

  The Roma, often called Gypsies, are the largest group of people without their own country.  They live all over eastern and central Europe in countries like Romania, Poland, Macedonia, Czech Republic, Greece, and others.  They have a unique and beautiful culture but a hard and brutal history.  They are an extremely persecuted and poor group of people.  So much so that ambulances won't come to Roma's homes. Roma kids must sit in the back of classrooms and aren't allowed to have curriculum taught in a language they understand. Roma aren't allowed to have jobs in the general public. And, police will turn their heads if a Roma is getting beat in the street.  Somehow it has become okay for a people group to become considered less than people.  Because of this, the Roma have become very hardened and mistrusting of anyone outside their race.
    I had the privilege of working with several Roma families in a village near Krakow, Poland for a week. My group worked with a missionary there to hold a family camp. Roma families were brought from their villages to a hotel-like environment, allowed to have a bed in which to sleep and a hot shower and given the opportunity to hear about Christ and experience His love through hugs, fun activities and relationship building. The families attending had a great time and some walked away changed, having learned about and accepted Jesus.
   God is just and loves all people. And, so should we. When we know about injustice and do nothing, we are as guilty as those who deliberatively deprive others of basic needs or hurt them intentionally.

Kyle Cravens
Digging Deeper: Justice (verse 8)

God declared, "I the Lord love justice." Why would this be the case? Elsewhere in Isaiah, the prophet announced "the Lord is a just God" (Isa. 30:18). In other words, God's desire for justice-right, proper, and moral treatment-and antipathy towards anything contrary to it stems from His nature. Justice is an inherent characteristic and quality of the Lord.
In our society, "justice" seems to be in the eye of the beholder. What might be justice to one person may be injustice to another. Often, we have to call courts to decide which party is correct. That is never the case with God, because all His acts are just, righteous, and good. Whatever God chooses to do, believers can know it characterized by justice.