Pursue the justice and goodness of God! | The Gospel of the Day

Proverbs 21, verse 21 tells us this: “He who pursues righteousness and kindness will find life, righteousness and glory. »

This word is simple, but it has blessed consequences, a powerful impact in our life. God invites us to pursue justice and goodness and we will dissect these two notions a little bit, and we will notice, by probing the original text, that it goes in two directions.

So justice, it is the word “Tsadac” which is used, it is of course the notion first of all of “being right”. But also the notion of “defending a just cause”. Defend a just cause. So, to be “upright” there is in this word much about this aspect of “being declared righteous, being justified by God”.

We have considered in the past weeks the notion of grace and it is obvious, when we read the Word of God, that "there is not one righteous, not even one", says the apostle Paul , we are justified only through faith in Jesus Christ and it is a grace of God. This grace, we must receive it and simply share it. To be justified in order to be at peace with oneself, at peace with God and thus be able to defend a just cause with complete freedom and commitment.

We therefore have here in the notion of justice two directions: one which is first for oneself and another which is towards others. Pursue justice, don't stop at the blessing that God has given you, but go and defend a just cause. It can be: going to support the poor and the unfortunate and of course, in the spirit of the Word of God, going to do good to someone who will not be able to give it back to us, to someone we are going bless in a completely selfless way. This is a very strong spiritual notion in the Word of God: pursue justice and goodness. Goodness is the word “chacad” in the original text which means “to be good, to be kind”. It still affects a personal aspect but also “receiving”, that's surprising, “receiving reproaches, being ashamed of or being made ashamed”. And this notion is intriguing: being good is obvious!

Pursue justice and kindness, precisely when one turns to defend a cause that deserves it, it is a manifestation of kindness. But here is what we can also understand: it is that we can be declared ashamed, that means that goodness, it makes us say that we are reprehensible and a text of the Word of God tells us: "This is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. I made a post about it and I encourage you to check it out.

The goodness of God leads us to repentance. To be ashamed is also to be able to receive God's goodness in our lives. He does not condemn us, he does not crush us, but he tells us of the things that must be improved, changed, given up, all the evil that we do that we must forsake, in order to be able to receive the goodness of God and manifest it to the others. Again, pursue goodness and justice, this touches on an area that is primarily personal. Pursue personal justice, pursue God's goodness in your life, let Him rebuke you when you need rebuke, and you in turn can look to others to do justice and show the goodness God has given you. gave.

I simply end with this word found in the New Testament, 2 Thessalonians 3: “As for you brothers and sisters in the faith, do not neglect to do good. Today, pursue God's goodness to you. Receive the goodness of God which perhaps leads you to repentance to change what is wrong, and you will be able to share justice, to do good around you, to manifest the goodness of God around you.

Be blessed, may the Lord guide you in all his works.

Tony Tornator