We're happy to think of God being good and holy and His being a God of love and mercy and grace and truth.  We like it that He is faithful and righteous, and if we don't think too much about the implications we feel pretty good about His being a God of commitment.  His being a just God makes us a little uneasy since being just means that He is a God of justice; we want mercy and grace, not justice.  If God being just gives us some twinges of discomfort, His being a God of judgment really sets off alarms.

   To all fathers out there, Happy Father's Day!  I can't think of a more appropriate time to ask the following question: "What will happen to a nation whose children grow up without a conscience?"  One reason it's appropriate to ask this question now is due to the mounting evidence that such is happening in our nation, right now.

By: Dennis Stackhouse

   A wayward young man ran away from home on one occasion.  This boy didn't even bother to let his parents know where he was.  As time went by, his father died.  He happened to read about it in the newspaper and then came home.  His mother received him kindly upon his return.  The day came when the will was to be read.  The family all gathered together and the lawyer began to read the deceased father's last will.  To the great surprise of all who were present, the will spoke about the wayward career of the run away son in great detail.  In anger, the boy rose up and stormed out of the room, left the house and was not heard from for three years.  When he was eventually found, he was informed that after telling of his waywardness, the will went on to bequeath him a considerable sum of money.  Can we imagine how much sorrow he would have been spared if he had only heard the reading of the will through to the end?

   God is totally, absolutely, fundamentally righteous!  Such a statement's a no-brainer, right?  Right!  But it's also a necessary statement, especially for the benefit of those  who have weak faith.  Knowing that God is righteous gives us confidence in all that He claims to be and in all of His teachings and in all of His assurances laid out for us in scripture.