Tag Archives: judge

We Choose Our Destiny

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WE CHOOSE OUR DESTINY 

“‘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.

“‘There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn him at the last day. For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that His command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.'” John 12:47-50 NIV.

Could Jesus say any more clearly how intimately He related to the Father? His claim to oneness with the Father was spelled out and lived out in everything He said and did.

As human beings and according to the way we humans think, we have the mistaken idea that God will be our accuser when we stand before Him at the end of time. And yet the Bible teaches us that it is the devil, not God who is the accuser. We need to get rid of the notion that God will demand, ‘Why did you do this?’ or ‘Why did you do that?’ Enshrined in His gift of free will is the very judgment our choices will bring by the consequences of our choices.

There is a tendency in us to blame God when the choices we make bring the consequences we don’t like. Is there any logic in the outburst of the young girl, ‘Why did God allow this to happen?’ when her promiscuous behaviour produces either an unwanted pregnancy or worse? Did God tell her to sleep around? Did He force her to go to bed with every man she dates?

And when she decides to get rid of “the products of conception” and then faces the shame, guilt and condemnation of a conscience she cannot silence, is it God’s fault that she feels so bad? Did He tell her to get an abortion? Did He hide the truth from her until the deed was done and then beat her with the consequences?

The difference between God’s way and the devil’s modus operandi is this: God speaks the truth and does not hide the unpleasant consequences of our disobedience. He makes His requirements clear and warns us what will happen if we choose the path of self-will. He offers His grace but we must first make the choice to obey Him.

Satan, on the other hand, makes disobedience appealing. He lures us with self-gratification; he insists that it’s okay to satisfy our fleshly appetites now; he lies about the consequences; he waits until we have transgressed the boundaries and then beats us with condemnation. ‘You stupid fool! Look what you’ve done. You are a wicked person. You don’t deserve to live.’

Those who believe in Jesus can live life one of two ways. It all depends on whether or not we have embraced the truth of God’s word. We can be propelled into the future by our past, ashamed, apologetic, never knowing whether we have done enough to satisfy God’s requirements, acting like a slave who is bound to his master by rules and never able to accept God’s embrace and His affirmation, ‘My son; my daughter.’

On the other hand, we can be drawn into our future by God’s promises — believing the truth of His word and living up to who He says we are. He has cancelled our debt, and the written law with its demands and requirements. He knew we could never keep His law perfectly. He paid our unpayable debt, past, present and future and received us back into His family as greatly blessed, deeply loved and highly favoured sons and daughters.

He gave us the Spirit of sonship. We are no longer slaves but sons. We have all the privileges of sons. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation! No guilt! No shame! No barriers! Every promise we believe and embrace draws us nearer to who we really are.

God has made us responsible for our own judgment. When we stand before Him, what will our lives reveal? Obedience to His word and eternal life or rejection of what He said and an eternity of consequences we brought on ourselves because we thought we knew better?

It’s up to us to decide.

Walk In The Light

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WALK IN THE LIGHT 

“To this they replied, ‘You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!’ And they threw him out.'” John 9:34 NIV.

Strange isn’t it, to what lengths people will go to prove they are right, only to dig themselves deeper and deeper into their own guilt! No matter what they said or did, it didn’t make the Pharisees right and the healed man wrong! Education, status, position, standing in society or in the church, title or anything does not make lies the truth.

“Jesus heard that they had thrown him out and, when He found him He said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ ‘Who is He, sir? Tell me so that I may believe in Him.’ Jesus said, ‘You have now seen Him; in fact, He is the one speaking with you.’ Then the man said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshipped Him.'” John 9:35-38 NIV.

Two perspectives; two conclusions! The Pharisees rejected Jesus as the Son of Man and ended up by evicting the healed man from the synagogue (vs 22) because he acknowledged that Jesus was from God. On the other hand, Jesus found the man and invited to faith in Him as the Messiah. The man gladly responded, completing the conviction he had that Jesus was from God and entering into the kingdom of God.

In spite of the Pharisees adamant claims, the “in” were “out” and the “out” was “in”!

Not only could he now see but his healing had also given him spiritual “sight” into the unseen realm of faith. The action of the Pharisees only served to intensify their blindness while the healed man had never seen so clearly in his life before.

“Jesus said, ‘For judgment I have come into the world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.’ Some Pharisees who were with Him heard Him say this and asked, ‘What? Are we blind too?’ Jesus said, ‘If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” John 9:39-41.

Amazing how those Pharisees got the point! They were sharp enough to realise that Jesus was talking to and about them. They had accurately judged and condemned themselves but still refused to acknowledge that they were guilty.

It is this aspect of ownership, rulership and authority of the world that the unbeliever refuses to accept. To accept the truth that God is the Creator of the universe is to acknowledge His ownership and authority over everything, including human beings who do not want to be ruled.

When Adam disobeyed God’s instruction at the beginning, he declared independence and illegitimately snatched the right to make his own rules. However, his action does not cancel God’s authority — it only compounds man’s guilt.

“But to the wicked person God says, ‘What right have you to recite my laws or take my covenant on your lips? You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you…When you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you. But now I will arraign you and set my accusations before you.'” Psalm 50:17, 17; 21 NIV.

The one difference between God’s way and all the ways of false religions is that God has appointed a Judge who will judge the world in righteousness. “For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.” Acts 17:31 NIV.

The very ones who refused to recognise Him; who maligned Him and those who believed in Him; who falsely arrested, accused and had Him crucified, will face the blazing light of His glory and give an account of their deeds. He will not need to say a word. They will finally “see” in the light of His truth, every lying word they ever spoke or thought and every wicked deed they perpetrated in the name of God.

Jesus invites us to “walk in the light” now so that we will not need to be ashamed at His coming.

Truth Is Its Own Witness

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TRUTH IS ITS OWN WITNESS 

“The Pharisees challenged Him, ‘Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.’ Jesus answered, ‘Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I came from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge, my decisions are true because I am not alone. I stand with the Father who sent me. In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. I am the one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father who sent me.'” John 8:13-18 (NIV).

The Pharisees must have learned their lesson well. They had tried to catch Jesus out by bringing a woman caught in adultery and demanding that He authorize her to be stoned. According to the Law of Moses, stoning was the penalty for adultery. Jesus applied another law to rescue the woman from their cruel plot — the very same law that they were now appealing to, the law of two witnesses.

They pointed fingers at the woman while they were equally guilty of sin. When Jesus allowed their consciences to speak against them, they left and the woman was without witnesses against her and He was able to show her mercy and set her free. Now they accused Jesus of being His own witness.

Jesus was not fazed by their accusation. He knew that truth did not need witnesses. Human beings can never claim to know the truth in absolute terms because our witness is flawed by our faulty understanding and opinions. At best we can only judge by what we think we know or have seen. Jesus, on the other hand, IS the truth — His judgment is perfect, based on perfect knowledge because He is the embodiment of truth. Therefore His witness is true.

Jesus knew both His origin and His destiny. He knew that He had been sent by the Father and was returning to the Father. Because the Pharisees rejected Him, they did not believe that He had come from God. Therefore they kept asking, ‘Who are you and where do you come from?’

Jesus had many witnesses that testified to the validity of His claims. John the Baptist bore witness to Him as “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The Father audibly acknowledged Him at His baptism; the Holy Spirit visibly descended on Him; and His miracles testified that He was from God. Only Nicodemus, of all the Pharisees recognized that there was something different about this rabbi. He had both authority and power that no other rabbi had ever displayed. His conclusion was that God was with Him.

Unbelief is a powerful and effective block against the truth. On the other hand, faith is the only link we have with the knowledge of the truth. Faith opens the highway between us and God. Our faith is so precious to God that He continually tests us to strengthen and verify that our faith is genuine.

“In all this you greatly rejoice, though for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes ever though refined by fire — may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 1 Peter 1:6, 7(NIV).

How often, in our ignorance of God’s ways, do we attribute our trials to the devil instead of recognizing the hand of the Father working in us to strengthen our confidence in Him. How else can faith grow and become strong if we have no opportunity to exercise our trust in God when we cannot see one step ahead of us?

Because of the Pharisees’ hidden agenda, they refused to receive the witness to Jesus that was all around them if they had only wanted to believe. It comes down to one thing again — choice. They chose not to believe because Jesus interfered with their unholy ambitions.

We are also faced with the same choice. We do not need more proof that Jesus is the Son of God. We need to choose whether we want to be part of His kingdom or continue to be part of the kingdom of this world which is destined to perish along with everything that is not eternal.

One Like Us

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ONE LIKE US 

“‘By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just,  for I seek not to please myself but only Him who sent me. If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies in my favour and I know that His testimony about me is true. You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. Not that I accept human testimony but I mention it that you may be saved. John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.'” John 5:30-35 (NIV).

In a single sentence Jesus clears up a misunderstanding that many make about Him. “‘By myself I can do nothing.'” Although He was the Son of God and God in the flesh, He chose to lay aside all the privileges of deity and live on earth as an ordinary man with no power to do anything except through the power of the Holy Spirit. Why did He do that?

He came in the likeness of the first Adam, equipped with the same Holy Spirit who indwelt Adam and with the same potential to fail as Adam had. He faced the same temptations as Adam did and risked the same fate as Adam did, but where Adam sinned by choosing independence from God, Jesus did not.

He chose to live His earthly life in union with the Father and in submission and obedience to Him out of loving reverence for Him. It was not because He was God that He did the things He did; it was because He listened to the Father and did what He was commanded to do. On one occasion He was accused of casting out demons in the name of Beelzebub. His response was “If it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Matthew 12:28 (NIV).

His union and fellowship with the Father was so close that the very works He did were a testimony to His origin. He was sent by the Father and it was His purpose to do everything the Father told Him in order to please Him and to fulfil His will.

John bore testimony to Jesus because God revealed to him that the One on whom the Spirit descended was the Messiah. Although his testimony was true and valid, it was the testimony of the Father spoken at His baptism, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased,”(Mark 1:11b), together with the witness of His works that were the evidence of His true identity as the Son of God.

Truth in a Jewish court of law was established by the evidence of two or three witnesses whose testimony had to agree. Jesus had the undeniable truth from the evidence of the Father’s testimony about Him and the testimony of those who had been healed through His miracles, and yet the religious leaders refused to accept their testimony and believe the truth.

It was not the evidence that was lacking but the prejudice of those who refused to believe the evidence that produced the on-going conflict that eventually led to Jesus’ violent and untimely death. It was not Jesus who was put on trial but His accusers for refusing to weigh up the evidence honestly and arrive at the truth.

He was the Son of God and His power came from God in response to His obedience, which qualified him to be the representative of the human race and to die in the place of those who had failed to live in obedience to the Father. He was the perfect substitute and sacrifice for the whole human race and His death paid the debt we owed the Father for our disobedience and failure to live as sons and daughters of God.

The only way in which we can ever be reconciled to the Father and restored to our place in the family of God is to acknowledge that we owe Him a great debt for our rebellion and to accept the payment of our debt by our elder brother. Jesus took our place so that we can be received back into God’s family as beloved sons and daughters.

Although He paid the debt for the world’s sin, it is only those who respond in faith and obedience who can enjoy all the benefits of being in God’s family.

Let’s Put An End To War

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LET’S PUT AN END TO WAR

“‘I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You’ll never — I promise — regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives towards us, generously and graciously, even when we’re at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind.

“‘Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticise their faults — unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don’t condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you’ll find life a lot easier. Give away your life; you’ll find life given back, but not merely given back — given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity.'” Luke 6:37-39 (The Message).

The world of nature has many lessons for us, if we are willing to learn them. Take the lesson of sowing and reaping, for example.

The same law that works in our gardens works in our lives. The kind of seed we put in the ground will determine the kind of fruit we reap, and not only in kind but in measure. We cannot plant one grain of wheat and expect to reap oats or a bumper crop from one seed.

It’s the same in life. We cannot sow stinginess and expect to reap generosity or meanness and expect to reap kindness. Bottom line; we reap what we sow. But it’s about much more than reaping what we sow. It’s about what happens inside of us when we live generously and graciously. The guilt, shame and unhappiness that we feel when we are stingy and unkind gives way to peace and joy which are enough rewards without the rest of the harvest that will come to us.

That’s the way God created us to be from the beginning; in His image and one with Him in the way He thinks and acts. That’s the way Jesus lived as a man among us. Tit-for-tat living brings no joy or fulfilment; it only perpetuates and escalates evil. Does revenge ever stop with the first wrong? Never!

Judging, criticising, retaliating, all betray a deep-seated attitude that Jesus hates — the “I’m better than you” disposition, looking down on other people, either trying to show them up through judging or criticising, or trying to get even with them by retaliation and revenge.

The problem with these attitudes is that they reveal more about us than about the person we are gunning for. Not only do they expose our own hearts, but they also reap far more trouble than we expected. We only need to watch children in the playground. One child offends another; the other retaliates and before long there is war. Other children are drawn in and injuries happen, black eyes, scratches, skinned knees and possibly even worse. Where do the violence and killing that happen in schools today originate?

Jesus said that, by cutting off evil at its source, you can stop the flow. Change the seed you sow and see what happens. But He didn’t only tell us what to do; He did it Himself. He showed us what happens when we absorb evil instead of perpetuating it, loving instead of hating, having a generous attitude instead of being harsh and judgmental, making allowances for people instead of being rigid and unforgiving.

It came to an end in Him; He took it to death and then came back; He proved He could overcome and then gave us the power to conquer our own unkind dispositions so that we can live like Him.

Religion offers nothing but the vain hope that people can do enough to satisfy the deity. No god has ever done anything for mankind but perpetuate wickedness. There is only one God, the Creator of the universe and perfect representative of the Father, Jesus who did it all for us. He took our place, paid our debt and then gave us the righteousness He earned through His obedience in the face of suffering.

Have you received Him?