Riverside, Calif. (Nov. 24, 2014) – Christians' confusion over love and justice can affect their faith, said the founder of The Justice Conference in chapel services Nov. 19 at California Baptist University.

"We've gone right on thinking that we're good people because we're loving people, which simply means we have strong desires," Ken Wytsma said. "Jesus flips this on its head, this consumeristic way of understanding love on its head and says no, love is measured in terms of sacrifice."

The Justice Conference is an annual international conference that centers on biblical justice and God's call to Christians to give their lives away. Wytsma is also the president of Kilns College and lead pastor at Antioch Church in Bend, Ore.

He spoke on John 15, where Jesus commands believers to remain in his love so their joy may be complete and to love each other as he loved them, saying "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."

"We, like the Pharisees, want to hold on to our truth and we want to hold to our doctrine," he said. "We don't really understand what love dictates or that love mandates justice or that somehow we're supposed to sacrifice. It's not about us. If you seek your life, you'll lose it, but if you lose you'll life, for my sake, says Jesus, you'll find it. It flips it completely on its head."

Wytsma called Leviticus 19 a social justice chapter and noted verse 33 where the writer says to love others as the Israelites loved themselves. This verse captures true love and true justice, he said.

"Finding the meaning of love in giving our lives away is actually where we're going to find our greatest flourishing, our joy, our happiness. True justice is a real dying to self and finding life in the process."