Thankful that God is Just

When I was a child, I really hated getting in trouble for something that I did not do. Some of my teachers would punish the whole class for what a few people did. Other times the teacher would not see what happened and just pick out the ones to be punished based on other factors. I think most of us value justice, and we want to be treated justly. The great thing is that God is just. We should all be thankful for that fact.

David was thankful that God was just for him. (Psalm 7:17) He proclaimed to everyone that he would thank the Lord because He was just, and he would sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High. I believe there is more to this verse than we might think on the surface. Let's spend a few moments examining what David was inspired to tell us all. It could be very helpful.

For those of us who are very serious about our relationship with the Lord, we want the Lord to shoot straight with us. When we sin, we want Him to convict us of our sin and to punish us in the best way to teach us what we need to learn, so we won't commit that sin again. We don't want God to be too harsh or too lenient. When we do well, we want the Lord to commend us according to His justice. In other words we don't want more credit than we deserve. God can and does do both of these perfectly, so we should thank Him for that all of the time.

Also, we should sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High because He is just. Praise is different from being thankful. We thank God for what He does, and we praise Him for who He is. We praise the Lord for His perfect attributes. He has many attributes, but being just is one of the most important, since God is the One who gives us the gift of salvation as we put our trust in Jesus. We want His decision to be just and right, so we have eternal life in Jesus. So we need to praise God and thank God because He is just and He does what is just all the time.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Psalms 9-11.