Do Justice!

Mark Shea

by Mark Shea on March 19, 2010 · 1 comment

Micah 3:1
Hear, you heads of Jacob
and rulers of the house of Israel!
Is it not for you to know justice?

One of the dangers of the spiritual life is false humility.  Sometimes, in order to avoid doing the right thing, we can pretend that we are too ignorant of God’s will to know what to do.  But as C.S. Lewis observed, the trouble with trying make yourself stupider than you really are is that you can often succeed.  Today’s verse speaks to that rather silly spiritual condition.  It is often the condition in which our culture finds itself, unable to render elementary justice to outrageous crimes because, after all, “Who are we to judge?”  “Not judging” does not mean abandoning the call to do justice.  It means not usurping the place of God.  Today, do justice, love mercy and walk in true humility before your God.

Mark Shea

By Mark Shea

Mark P. Shea is a Catholic author, blogger, and speaker.

  • lkeebler

    Thank you, thank you for making the distinction. God is a God of Love and Justice! Without true Justice there can be no true Love. Who are we to judge? God tells us to judge with a righteous judgment. I think people confuse the judgment of appearances “do not judge” – the speck and log in the eye as spoken of in Matthew 7, with the “righteous judgment” Christ tells us to do in John 7. There is judgment by “appearances” and then there is the “righteous judgment” that Christ tells us to do.

    Matthew 7:1 “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. 2 “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. 3 “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

    John 7:24 “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”