by Marti Fischer

We are a people who love knowledge. We study the Word, support causes, fund ministries. But there’s a growing disconnect between what we know and what we do. We’ve mistaken justice for charity. We’ve settled for awareness when the gospel calls us to action.

But Scripture is clear: justice is not an extra—it’s a command. A defining mark of those who truly follow God.

“Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
Plead the case of the widow.”
— Isaiah 1:17

This verse doesn’t suggest kindness; it demands righteousness. It doesn’t ask for sympathy; it calls for solidarity.

It’s easy to confuse compassion with a checkbook. But justice — the kind God speaks of — is not something you donate. It’s something you embody. It’s a life lived in proximity to pain, communion with the poor, and shared space with the vulnerable.

God’s judgment isn’t just on individuals—it’s on systems that perpetuate harm.

“Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.”
— Isaiah 10:1–2

Injustice is not just a social issue; it’s a spiritual crisis, and we cannot respond to it with detachment. You cannot seek justice from behind a desk or a comfortable chair, alone. Justice has to be touched. Seen. Felt. Lived.

“The Lord watches over the foreigner
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.”
— Psalm 146:9

Touching justice means getting close enough to touch the widow’s grief, hear the orphan’s silence, feel the stranger’s fear. These are not statistics. These are stories. These are people.

When we allow their lives to intersect with ours, the Word hidden in our hearts becomes alive. The Holy Spirit activates it, not for head knowledge but for absolute power — the Lord’s power. His power works through us to respond, weep, build, and restore.

Justice is not a theory. It is personal. It is urgent. It is sacred.

You will meet women who have buried husbands and sleep on concrete. You will meet children who try to smile through trauma. You will sit with strangers who carry entire histories of displacement, violence, and neglect.

And still, they carry dignity. Do not ever forget this. They radiate resilience. Their presence is a testimony to the God who sees. If we let them, their stories will haunt us, teach us, break us open, and call us to what matters.

Their voices are a gift. Their strength is a rebuke to our comfort. And when we finally stop seeing them as “others,” but as image-bearers of the Most High, something inside us shifts.

“He has shown you, O man, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.”
— Micah 6:8

Justice is not a passion project. It is the requirement of the redeemed.

Justice is not about doing more good things. It’s about doing the right thing—for the right reason — because it’s God’s thing.

Don’t just know the stories. Touch them. Don’t just hear the cries. Respond.
And don’t just study the Word. Let the Word live in you. Let the Holy Spirit activate you. Let the Lord’s power work through you — so others might live.