Righteousness and Justice

When I first came to Montreal, it was the first time I really listened to “Christian” French. (Side note: As Christians, we use a certain vocabulary that is not really used elsewhere. That’s what I mean by “Christian” French). There were words like redemption, Heaven, etc. that were never taught to me in a public school setting. Luckily, the classes I was in were translated, so I quickly made the link with these new words. However, as any bilinguals (or multilinguals) will understand, some things translated poorly. It is a constant challenge that, as a translator, I enjoy very much.
Now to the point. There were a couple words that got on my nerves. I felt the translators were not doing justice to the speakers. Specifically, I’m taking about the words JUSTICE and RIGHTEOUSNESS. You see, in French, both of these words are translated as JUSTICE. I felt the French language was missing out. Not covering all the angles. And I have to confess that my attitude in that area were not always right. When translating, I would use the term “Droiture”, which translates as Uprightness, for righteousness. I would leave “justice” to translate justice. It made sense to me.
Let’s fast-forward a few years to the present. What am I getting at? I’ll tell you. Recently, I have been reflecting on these words, and how interrelated they are. And I got to thinking; maybe the French aren’t so far off. Maybe these terms are close enough to share the same word. Can justice exist without righteousness? Can I be righteous without practicing justice? What is my duty in the eyes of God? Abram believed what God said, and that was credited to him as righteousness (Gen.5: 6). Here we see an aspect of faith connected to righteousness. I see faith in justice as well. It sometimes requires a lot of faith to act justly. In business + politics, for example, it takes faith to stand up for people over profit. To trust that God will provide when we value people over revenue. Here in Montreal, there was a proposal to move the Casino into a community that is in a lower economic bracket. Why? So it’s closer to people, so it makes more money. I don’t think I need to go into detail about why this is wrong. The plan failed, Praise God!, and the casino will stay out in the middle of the river. Here is an example of a righteous decision being made. It is also practicing justice in a neighborhood that would have suffered greatly otherwise.
All over the world we can find examples of this, as well as unrighteous decisions leading to situations of injustice. They go hand in hand. Inseparable budies.
The way I see it now is that one is the inward conviction, and the other is the outward expression.
Let’s practice both.

Seasons

It's not always harevst. Let's face it. Correct me if I'm wrong but, it is impossible for things to always be producing fruit. Unless we take ourselves to have more wisdom than Solomon, we need to understand that there is a season for everything. (Ecc.3)
Why do I say this, you may ask. Let me continue. How often do we seek constancy in our relationships? With God, with spouses (significant others), friends, aquaintances, etc. We think every time we are with our loved ones it should be an amazing wonderful time. Every time we open our bibles, we expect divine revelation, and profound wisdom from God. Every time we share the gospel, the person should joyfully respond to the truth. Yet the reality is that this doesn't happen. And we get frustrated, we blame ourselves, we doubt God, as well as others, we try to purge our sin so that we can "open up the heavens" and hear God speak. Is this healthy? I mean really.....How much better would our lives be if we understood seasons? In this generation, in the western world, we are losing our notion of agriculture. We live in cities and buy our produce pre-packaged and ready to serve. We never have to wait for it to come, to grow, ripen. If Jesus is the vine, and we are branches, wouldn't it be worth finding out, at least the basics, about how fruit, or vegetables, grow?
When a seed is planted, sometimes there is a long periode before we seed it again at all. even when we start to growth, there is another time when the plant is maturing. Then there is blosoming and fertilizing, which is beautiful but still no fruit is there. Finally there is fruit that shows, but we still need to wait for the fruit to ripen before we can enjoy it. Then it continues to produce fruit consistently until God "calls it home", right? Not so much. After the fruit is harvested, it's winter time. Seasons, cycles. It's all around us. And there is lot's of work to do during the seasons when there is no fruit. Even in the winters.
So in conclusion, I believe that we can apply this analogy to lives. Whether it is in ministry, or in our relationships, we need to be aware of the seasons, and be ready to do the appropriate work during those seasons, so that we can experience good fruit in our lives.

Transformed into my image of Him?

In the last few weeks, I've been seeing, listening, talking with, all sorts of different people. Each one a seasoned Christian, but so very different in their expression of God. I also just finished reading "The Jesus I never knew" by Phillip Yancey (side note: A book well worth reading), which only added to my reflection.
So here goes. I work in an environment where we seek to train others to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. Some speak of being transformed into his image. This, I believe, is a calling on my life; to facilitate people becoming more like Christ (all the time seeking to become more like Christ myself). But now I've got to thinking; How often do we seek to help people grow into, not the image of Jesus, but into OUR image of who Jesus is? Now let's be honest with ourselves, I do it myself, we judge people's "Christian growth" through how much they fit into our view of who Jesus is. Just look at our churches. We create so many molds and boxes that push conformity of expression, and preach submission to those who don't fit the mold. We create lists that people need to live by, and, knowingly or not, seek to control behaviour, again, to conform it.
So why do I bring this up? Simple, the only thing we are to conform to is the charater of Jesus. God is a God of diversity, and our expression of Him is to be diverse. If every person who is alive, add that to everyone who has ever lived, expresses part of who God is differently (and I believe they (we) do), He will not have been fully expressed. That's how great He is. Yet we seek to conform expression to what we know and what is comfortable and feels nice.
We need to be constantly seeking who Jesus is, and how that affects our choices, things we need to change, etc. That's our personal duty. On top of that, we need to be asking God to show us how He is working in the lives of others around us. We need to trust in the greatness of God to be working in the hearts of people.
Now thankfully (or not, depending on how you see it) God calls us to work with Him in the restauration of our world. This includes interacting with people as we all journey to be more like Jesus. This is an awesome responsibility, not to be taken lightly. This is why we should be quick to listen (so we can see what God is doing in the person's life) and slow to speak (so we don't "give advice" or judge, and possibly mess up what God is doing). If God wants us to speak into someone's life, he will guide us in our speech, but even then, we need to be humble about it and act with "fear and trembling" when dealing with the lives of individuals. We are not God. Therefore, let us be humble and obeidient to God when interacting with those around us.
Hope this makes sense.