Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV
[8] “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. [9] “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

What Isaiah wrote centuries ago, repeatedly jolts me into remembering that God’s thoughts and ways and mine are vastly different, as far apart as heaven from earth.

Let’s take for example, God’s thoughts and ways about judging. I find myself falling into a pattern of thinking when I am confronted with what I consider to be “sin” in myself or in a fellow believer. Accusing! I am shocked, outraged, “How could I, he, she, do that!” Judging! “Don’t I, they know what they are doing? Offending God! Breaking His law?” Condemning! “I, you are in big trouble.”

It takes me quite a while and lots of rethinking to attune myself to God’s thoughts. I think that the biggest difference between the way God and I think is that I focus on behaviour while God focuses on the person.

Let me explain. Even when I sin, God views me as His “son”. God doesn’t come down on me with a big stick. He treats me as His child. I have done wrong, yes, but I must be corrected, not destroyed, and shown the right way, not condemned.

When the Holy Spirit deals with my sin, He doesn’t tell me HOW BAD I am. That’s what the devil says. He tells me WHO I am, a child of God who is holy and beloved. He holds up the measure and shows me how to reach it. He offers the remedy for my sin, the cleansing blood of Jesus, and His power to overcome temptation. He teaches me how to “walk in the light” and draws me gently back into fellowship with the Father and the Son.

David celebrated this way of God’s dealings with him that warmed his heart towards Him. God isn’t like us. He restores; He does not annihilate. Unlike us, His judgment is designed to correct and to reinstate His sons and daughters to their favoured position in His family, not to alienate us from Him.

Psalms 103:8-14 NIV
[8] “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. [9] He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; [10] he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. [11] For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; [12] as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. [13] As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; [14] for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.”

The great difference between the way God thinks and the way we think is that He knows that He is in covenant with us. His ways are always in harmony with who he is, holy love. God made a covenant with Jesus which Jesus signed with His own blood, and gave Him to be the covenant to people. Whoever believes in Jesus is united with Him and participates in all the terms of that covenant.

By contrast, we quickly forget that we are in covenant with one another in Christ, in His family through Jesus. We are quick to throw stones instead of applying balm to the damaged soul.

The foundation of God’s covenant is His “chesed”, an untranslatable Hebrew word which means that He promises to be faithful to all that His love is and provides in a his covenant. This word is often translated “mercy” which includes the truth that what He does, He does, not because of our worth but despite our worthlessness.

When humans judge, we start with the offender’s behaviour and go on to what to do about it, ending with punishment of some sort. When God judges, He looks, first, at who did the offending, and what to do about it, ending with forgiveness and restoration.

Since God has made His Son the second party in the covenant so that He is both participant and mediator, Jesus IS the New Covenant. We trust Him to mediate everything that the covenant provides. Therefore, when we sin, we display unbelief in the one who provides everything we need in that Covenant, by disregarding His instructions.

This means that all God’s judgment hangs on the way we live out our faith in Jesus. If we disobey His commandments, we fail to believe Him and we fail to love Him. All sin, then is the fruit of our unbelief in Jesus.

Jesus could say, then…

John 8:31 NIV
[31] “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples….”

And…

John 3:18 NIV
[18] “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

The character of Jesus and our adherence to it, is God’s criterion for judgment. If we sin, Jesus Himself is our advocate and, through the Holy Spirit, He forgives and guides us back to His way.

If we sin wilfully and deliberately, we have no one to represent us because Jesus’ Word is our judge. His standard is righteousness and His method is His Word.

John 12:47-50 NIV
[47] “If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. [48] There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day. [49] For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. [50] I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”

This way of dealing with sin, ours or others, is the way God wants us to think, so that we maintain fellowship with Him and with one another in His family. John called this, “walking in the light.” Thinking God’s thoughts and following His ways will guard our hearts from acting in a way that splinters our fellowship and treats people as enemies, not family.