Judgment: Getting Real About Why We Share Jesus

[HKHaugan]

Judgment: Getting Real About Why We Share Jesus

“You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not shout, I’m telling you why, Santa Claus is coming to town. He’s making a list and counting it twice, he’s looking for those who are naughty or nice, Santa Claus is coming to town. He knows when you’ve been sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you’ve been good or bad so be good for goodness sake….” Remember that song around Christmas time? As cute as the song is it’s not the best way to think about God and the way He judges. Unfortunately God is equated with Santa Claus, so the world says, ‘Be good, get gifts.’

The way the human mind works is to avoid coming under judgment of any kind. That's due to personal fear. The idea being that if I can avoid any kind of open judgment then I can believe I am a good person and put on a show for others. I can really earn my way to Heaven if I'm careful at being good. Even though I know I am not and have not been good from time to time, no one really knows that. For the most part we have a kind of balance sheet mentality. The black side is good and the red side is bad. If I have more points on the black side I’m good because they cancel out the lesser bad things. I can say to myself, ‘Self, you are good more than not.”

The problem is ‘balance sheet mentality.’ It opens me up to judging others with my personal moral balance sheet. To use a business expression, “I cook the books in favor of myself.” Self deception is the nature of human judgment. It is done with a set of standards I make up. It’s all about pride and ego-assertion. I can rationalize and justify anything. I may even use Scripture to see who passes and who doesn’t. Relational comparison is a train wreck waiting to happen. This is what Jesus is talking about when He tells us not to judge others because that is the way we will be judged. He knows what we think and act like, that we can’t even measure up to our own standards. That's a realistic statement.

The only true realist that has ever been is Jesus. His Cross saved us from ourselves. That's realism personified. That is why He took the Cross on our behalf. We have to face the facts about what we are like within. Imperfect people can never breach the walls of spiritual reality until the One Real Person goes before us. The One who came from perfection to be perfection died perfectly to overcome aloneness, isolation and alienation. His faith and His love and His grace and His truth were His perfection. He rose from the dead to share His life of perfection, His life, with us and that is what a spiritual relationship with Him is all about, a perfect relationship He offers freely.

While we were still sinners caring only for ourselves, Christ died alone, rejected, betrayed and isolated by the world’s ‘balance sheet.’ On the Cross He showed what our death would be like apart from God; individual, personal and alone. He also showed something else that points to the ultimate realism and that was faith. His faith set the standard for every life from that point on. His faith in His Father, His faith in His Father's will, His faith in the Holy Spirit, His faith in Himself, and His faith in His Scripture. On the Cross He showed us that everything about Him; His attitude, His teaching, His miracles, His effect on people, His bearing, His spontaneity, and whatever other words we use to describe Him, all point to his perfection, His holiness and His being the perfect man. Jesus is the key to life and death, the beginning and the end, the way, the truth and the life.

On that same Cross He also showed His love for us by allowing Himself to be a visible victim of total human rejection by things visible and invisible, spiritual and secular; state, culture, family, religion, friends and human society.

The Cross was, by human standards, the lowest and most degrading death a person could suffer as punishment. Jesus, the pure, perfect and holy presence of God, was the only One worthy to be a sacrifice in our place. With Jesus you can be absolutely sure that what you see is what you get. Never any hiding, no hidden agenda, no remorse, no regret, no inner secrets, no avoiding truth about who He is and what He is like in His heart. There was no self-denial in Him, no avoidance, no self-doubt or indecision, no shame or guilt within. Thus He and He alone could bear the wrath and judgment of God each of us deserve. He loved us so much that He was willing to be that sacrifice for us. He took the judgment due us.

As Paul said in 2Cor.5:21, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

If we, you and I, really think about that personally, which He intends us to do, consider our personal history. There is no way we can rationalize and justify the specifics that flash across our memories. Yet this Jesus, God the Son, knows it all, every bit and piece, anticipated its effect and went to the Cross to forgive us. Wow. It's beyond my comprehension but I have accepted Him and His promise of forgiveness and a new life. All He really asks of us is to believe Him, trust Him and follow Him. We can do this, He said so.