God loves justice and righteousness. Living a life full of justice and righteousness won’t take away from “more important” spiritual priorities. Justice and righteousness are God’s priority, so we can reflect that through our lives. I get it. Justice/social justice can feel too confusing to understand or too political or too scary to explore. So I am going to leave you with a simple challenge: Love justice and righteousness. That’s the message. There are three simple steps to walking this out:
1. Ask God to love justice and righteousness like He does.
2. Ask Him to show you what the justice and righteousness that He loves looks like.
3. Ask Him to lead you into a life that displays the justice and righteousness that He loves.
That’s it. Love justice and righteousness like God does. Grow in what that looks like in your life. Learn the habits and rhythms. Get big ideas to solve massive issues of injustice. You will probably have to wrestle through what it looks like lived out through your unique passions, position, and talents. There isn’t one way to do it.
If you want to see a justice movement on the earth today, you won’t see it in the news or social media. If you want to see a justice movement, look in the mirror. It looks like you, with your exact talents, callings, gifts, and passions. The world will miss out on so much if you feel like you have to fit into a cookie-cutter idea of what a social justice person is supposed to look like. You don’t have to turn into a protesting hippie or leave your job to start a nonprofit in order to live out justice—unless that’s what you want to do. You can live out justice and righteousness exactly where you are. The world need you to be fully you. There are people to whom you have access that a big government agency doesn’t. You have ideas and dreams that someone that you picture as being more “qualified” doesn’t have. If you only do justice and righteousness during something like a weekly volunteer commitment, and stop as soon as you leave it, then huge parts of your life are going to be missing out on that influence. The invitation is not for you to join a cause or a project, but to use your full life to reflect God’s own heart.