As Intended

“Jesus was saying, 'It will be better, not just for the poor, but for you too, when you abandon the stuff you are holding on to.”

 - Radical by David Platt

I could talk (type) for hours about the truth of this statement, but then I could look around my apartment at the stuff strewn across the floor and turn around and call myself a hypocrite.

Regardless of all of that, this. is. true.

True justice for “the poor” means true justice for “the rich” as well.

Try it. Look around your house, or your room, or the nearest drawer or bag or box full of your belongings. Now, grab a piece of paper and number it one through twenty-five.

These are the twenty- things that you are going to get rid of today, the things that you are going to throw out or donate or sell (and then use the money for a just cause.) The first thing might be hard. Honestly, the twenty-fifth thing might be hard as well.

It feels better when you're done, though. It feel better to know that those things, even if they were scraps of paper and a pile of broken rubber bands, don't have any claim on you any more. Because, our stuff often owns us just as much as we own our stuff.

Giving things away might be justice for the people on the other end of the receiving, but it is justice for you as well. Because, it frees you to get a little closer to life as it ought to be.

And, that is all that justice is.

It is life as God intended it.