Final Judgment By God's Nature.

During my years in church I've heard more than a few descriptions of the "final judgement"... you know, that great day when God gets to send everybody to heaven and/or Hell. Many people seem really excited about it, even though to me, by their description, it sounds awful. One of the speculations that seems to be shared by many--and I can only assume that they get it from some vague scriptural reference--is that God (or maybe the devil) is going to reveal to us, and everyone around us, all we've done wrong and will judge us accordingly... of course factoring the get-out-of-judgement-free card (that's Jesus) for whomever it applies. He's gonna show us, on big movie screen, doing all the bad stuff we've ever done so that we will feel really sorry.

Ok, so I know I'm exaggerating the point a bit and I do this partly in jest. I know that there's a lot of truth behind this perspective. I know that in light of God's kingdom, perhaps we will be reminded about our sin and I know we will no doubt be judged for it. But is it really God's nature to sit us down and shove our faces in our junk? No.

Perhaps more in line with God's nature would be a judgement in which, rather than having our own sin revealed to us, we will have the sin of another person--perhaps someone of whom we have never even heard--revealed to us. And, rather than being judged for the wrong we've done, we'll be judged according to the way we respond to their sin. Will we be disgusted by them? Will we hate them? Will our response reflect the unrelenting love of God or our unrelenting thirst for vengeance? How many of us who may have looked ok in the first test would fail this one miserably?

In the end, is it not true that God's interest lies less in the things we do than in the way we see the people around us? If God is going to test us by anything, surely it will be by the way we reflect Him on our response to others.

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