Psalm 7: God - The Righteous Judge

    The LORD judges the peoples;
        judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness
        and according to the integrity that is in me.
    Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
        and may you establish the righteous—
    you who test the minds and hearts,
        O righteous God!
    My shield is with God,
        who saves the upright in heart.
    God is a righteous judge,
        and a God who feels indignation every day.
(Psalm 7:8-11 ESV)

One time when I was in High School we had a substitute teacher for my English class. The sub that we had was very quiet and reserved, so the class quickly started to take advantage of the situation. Most everyone was being disrespectful and would not listen to or do what they were supposed to. Our teacher was known for having a candy bag in her desk and some of the students even got into her desk and began eating her candy. However, not all of the students were being this way. Some of us, me included, where doing our work like we were supposed to and not causing problems.

Needless to say, the sub reported to our teacher what had happened. Apparently the sub however had not made note of who was causing trouble and who wasn't, so our teacher punished the whole class. We were all, disobedient and obedient alike, required to write a paper as a punishment. I remember being so upset that I was being punished right along with the trouble makers even though I had done nothing wrong. I felt like I had been judged unfairly and was being punished without merit, and there was nothing that I could do about it.

Have you ever been judged unfairly? It can be very frustrating when people judge us, or a situation, when they don't know the full story or all of the details. We all know the saying, "don't judge a book by it's cover", and we feel cheated when someone judges us without having "read" us completely. And we are all also, myself included, guilty of doing the same thing to other people.

But God is a righteous judge. He knows us and every circumstance perfectly and never makes a wrong judgement. And He comes to the rescue of the righteous. Those who put their trust in Him, and walk in obedience to Him, have nothing to fear from those in the world who would judge them unfairly. For God stands before them as a shield and upholds those whom He judges as being righteous.

So let us put our trust in God, knowing that He is the Righteous Judge who would never judge us unfairly.