Doing Justice and Loving Kindness

January 30, 2015

Doing Justice and Loving Kindness

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Philippians 2:5

When you are able to make peace with your own paradoxical nature, you can hear the words of a spiritual director, “Give up trying to look like a saint. It’ll be a lot better for everybody.” When we are at peace with God, who is at peace with us, we can lay aside our obsession with projecting the perfect Christian image and get on with living our life in Christ, which is simply a matter of practicing WWJD. (What Would Jesus Do?)

When we lose our preoccupation with ourselves, we are amazed to see that the life in Christ is not rocket science. Whenever Jesus was moved with emotion for the condition of people, he took action. Jesus illustrated how this can work out in our lives in his parable of the Good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite, the ones who knew the most about God, failed to act. The Samaritan, who supposedly knew the least about God, was commended by Jesus because he acted with compassion. “Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same” (Luke 10:37). The Apostle John summarized Jesus’ commendation of the Samaritan when he wrote, “Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions” (1 John 3:18). When we obey Jesus’ imperative, when we say “yes and amen” to John’s teaching, we will grasp the simplicity of Micah’s teaching on doing justice and loving kindness.

This is the life in Christ in a nutshell. Take a leap of faith, and embrace your right standing with God, and then go and do what the Holy Spirit shows you Jesus would do if he were standing in your shoes. (Which of course he is, since your leap of faith embraces the truth, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27b NRSV).)

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms is available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ  is available as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.