Dikaiōsis

As I was putting the dishes away, a small, dark object on the wall caught my attention. I dried my hands and decided to assess the situation. As I moved closer, I noticed it was a small spider making his home underneath my kitchen cabinets. I quickly grabbed a paper towel, closed my eyes, and squished the spider. Walking his dead little body to the garbage can, I said, “I’m so sorry little spider, but kitchens are not a good place for you, I don’t like spiders and it just wasn’t your day.” After my little speech to the dead spider, I laughed to myself and thought, do I really need to justify myself to a dead spider?

Is it just me, or can you relate with having a tendency to justify your actions no matter what they are?  To justify something simply means, to show or prove to be right or reasonable. I really thought that I had to prove to the spider that I was really being reasonable. There is just one problem with this justification word, we can use it for EVERYTHING. We can justify why we were late to the meeting, why the kids didn’t go to bed on time, why the coffee wasn’t made, why I didn’t get out of my sweatpants for the day, why the laundry didn’t get done and we can find a reasonable justification for it all.

When we start exercising this justification muscle, the proving reasonable can seep into what is right and wrong. It is one thing to justify why the laundry didn’t get done, but it is another to justify why we decided to make a clearly wrong decision. We are seeing people who love Jesus and love sin justify actions more and more. We hear phrases such as, well if it feels good, is fun, brings me joy, then Jesus loves me and that is okay. There is so much justification for our every move, that we have completely high-jacked the word from the true meaning. 

“Justification is a translation of the Greek dikaiōsis, originally a technical legal term derived from the verb “to make [someone] righteous.” (Britannica)

The truth is there is only ONE justification that is through the blood of Jesus Christ. We have been justified by Him to receive salvation only through FAITH and reliance on God, and not through our deeds or what we do. The truth is we are all sinners and have only been made righteous because of Him, not by what we do, how we act, what we say and how we say it. We cannot justify our actions because we already stand guilty. God loves us deeply, so He doesn’t want us to give Him reasons why we decided to do what we do, He wants us to come to Him with an open and repentive heart. 

Romans 3:31 says, “Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.” God wants us to run to Him telling him, “I messed up, I’m sorry, and I need you.” Instead of making justifications of our actions, run to Him and the more we do that, the more we want to uphold the good works, the good hearts, and the desire to be more like Him. When we open our hearts with repentance, that is truly when God can do a heart change. It’s when our desires become more centered on His desires and not our fleshly desires. 

If you are a justifier, as I am guilty of being, let us all remember to receive the justification that has been given to us, and walk in humility, repentance, and joy that we are righteous in the eyes of God and have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb! Our justification is in His hands and not ours.