Justifying By Design?

Have you ever made any decision in your entire life without justifying it in some way? Even our reflexes can be justified because we are wired to survive. At the most basic human behavior rests a desire to justify our actions. This might present a strong argument that we are often justifying by design.

There is something about our emptiness that is always reaching for something secure. We want to be sure that what we stand for, or what we are standing on, is rock solid. We need something to point to, like a safety net. When we where kids, we might have said, “Mom said it was OK,” or “Cause he hit me!” or “The Devil made me do it!” We seem to have this insatiable desire to justify everything.

But we are no longer kids…

I believe this points to a gap or deficiency that we have -- something that is missing in us. Something we believe we are supposed to supply or make up for.

According to Webster, justify means “to show or prove to be right or reasonable.” The Christian Latin origin is justificare, which means, “do justice to.”

So it could be said that at the very core of our human nature, we have a thirst to be right or seen as reasonable. For some of us this urge may be much stronger than found in others! We need that security -- that place to confidently sink our anchor.

It’s how we are designed.

I believe this truth points to something special. I believe it actually points to good news for each of us. As creatures who are striving to close a gap or make up for a deficiency, there is a Creator that designed us. And though we long to fill the gap or hole with reasons that justify our identity, we can only offer a temporary remedy.

Addicts know exactly what I am talking about. And in this instance, we might all be called addicts. Addicts continue to fill the immediate need with temporary solutions. Quick fixes.

You and I are all about quick fixes sometimes. But behavior that continually operates on quick fixes for immediate problems yields frustration and feelings of being unfulfilled. We might justify our actions for the moment; however, the same behavior causes us to have to repeat the strategy over and over, forming a destructive pattern.

We want to feel right, good, and accepted.

Our Creator offers us something permanent. It’s a permanent solution to the gap or deficiency in us. Though we were created imago dei (in the image of God), our image is broken. Sin has made the very foundation of our strategies and thinking unpredictable, irrational, and uncontrollable.

But God, through the sacrifice of Christ, has given us justifying grace. We have undeservingly been made righteous in the sight of God. It’s not something we can earn, but only acknowledge and receive. And whether we know it or understand it, it is exactly what our emptiness reaches for. It’s the work God has done for us, for the forgiveness of sins. And it is by our faith in the work God has done for us, through Christ, that we are justified, and not by anything we do on our own account.

We cannot work our way back to God no more than we are deserving of God’s grace in the first place. We are justified by design. Christ proves us right. And He says to us, "Come follow me," and things like "Feed my sheep..."

How are you trying to justify your life and actions?