December 29

Dec 29 – Today from Proverbs 29 we look at verse 7
"The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern."

Jesus revealed one of the great paradoxes of His day when He revealed that the self-righteous are not righteous at all. They are, in fact, wicked. This was also true in the day of Hezekiah, when these proverbs were collected, and now in our own day when we meditate upon them.
The self-righteous in Jesus’ day meticulously studied and kept the written law code without ever seeming to realize what was at the heart of the law. Jesus peals back the hypocrisy of the self-righteous in His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). He begins several points by saying, "You have heard that it was said . . ." This refers to the teachings of the self-righteous experts in the law. He then continues, "But I tell you . . ." Jesus then peals back the letter of the law to reveal the spirit of the law. Later in His ministry he is confronted by an expert in the law who asked what he might do to inherit eternal life (Luke 10:25). Jesus answered, "What is written in the law?" The expert gave an excellent answer, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus confirmed the excellence of the answer. But it wasn’t enough of an answer to satisfy the expert. He wanted to know just exactly what qualified one as his neighbor. Then Jesus tells one of the most popular stories in the New Testament – the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus was, in essence, saying that anyone in your path who is suffering injustice is your neighbor. It has very little, if anything, to do with their pedigree or their geographical location. Loving your neighbor is having mercy on those who in your path have experienced misfortune.
The self-righteous avoid, ignore, and look down on the unfortunate sinners and rabble. If you want their attention, you must improve your pedigree and move into their neighborhood. You have to become like them. If you do not, they show no concern for your station in life. This is wicked. Jesus says to the self-righteous in Matthew 23:15, "Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are." Becoming one of them (the self-righteous) is not the goal God has for you.
Do you want to be converted to true righteousness? Then you must emulate the true Shepherd. He did not avoid the socially disenfranchised – He went to them. He did not ignore the condemned and the crippled – He forgave and healed them. He did not look down on the prostitutes and the tax collectors – he cleansed and forgave them. He actually cared about them.
In God’s eyes, we are all sinners. We have all fallen short of the glory of God. The self-righteous is no more deserving than is the prostitute, or the leper, or the tax collector, or the homosexual, or the AIDS victim, or the abortionist, or the kid who stole your car stereo, or . . . well, you fill it in. God’s mercy extends to all through Christ Jesus. If you are in Christ, then you are called to be an agent of His mercy and to seek to bring justice (equity), to those less fortunate souls who lie within your path of ability. Don’t fret about running out of resources. You are a channel of an endless source of mercy. As you let it flow out, He lets it flow in. That is a picture of living water, it is water that flows.