I had a recent conversation with someone very close to me about being a good person. So, I have been thinking about this topic in one of the numerous open "windows" in my mind. What do I know about this? What do I think I know about this? Well, God is good, and my certainty on this subject ends there. So, this morning Roman's 2 chimes in on the subject. With all of the political rhetoric swirling around us, not to mention all of the rest of life, it might be hard for us to judge what is good. As I opened the Word, the heading, God's Righteous Judgment, was over the 2nd chapter in Romans. So, here we go.
In my mind, there are many factors to consider. So much of scripture is like putting a giant puzzle together. We must consider the whole of scripture in order to be able to see the full picture. It's a bit like pulling a few pieces out of a 5000 piece Christmas puzzle box, taking a glance only at the pieces, and declaring that we have seen the full picture. Not possible. But, isn't that what we do sometimes? In this section of scripture, Paul writes, " You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things." Now, immediately our minds go to things like murder, adultery, thievery, etc. How dare you say that I am guilty of murder if I judge a murderer! O.K....Simmer down...that is not what this means.
I believe that this section of scripture has to do with how we judge situations, motivations, and interactions. Yes, it is talking about what we perceive to be sin, but I do not think that this is talking about the things that we humans would label as the big sins. God dealt with several of those in Chapter 1. He is seldom redundant. In my opinion, He is dealing with the way in which we judge the hearts of others; the ways that we become offended at someone's actions or choice of words; the way that we are sure that we know the whole story, when the truth is that we have no idea. These are the judgements that we make just before we roll our eyes, or whisper, "How dare she speak to me like that," to a close friend. These are the assumptions we mistake for truth when we hear of a divorce or a public accusation. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about.
Yes, we think that we are discerning rightly because, after all, isn't the church supposed to judge sin? Again, we have to look at the whole of scripture. Yes, there is a time to judge sin and bring correction, restoration or separation, but in Romans 2, God is dealing with something else altogether.
God takes our hearts very, very seriously, and He reserves the judgement of hearts for Himself. We excuse our own "bad moods" or lapses of our standards. Things come out of our mouths before we know it, and we think that a quick, "Oh, I didn't mean that," should fix things up. However, when someone else does the same things there MUST be a more insidious reason that it happened. Right?
Well, here's how that story ends: God takes our judging of another's heart very seriously. It is His desire that our human failings be covered by His grace and mercy, but we put Him in the position of having to judge us when we try to do His job for Him. Romans 2:4 even states that we, "...show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?" Verse 5 goes on to explain that as we continue in our ways of judgement we build up a huge pile of wrath that will be unleashed upon us when judgement day arrives. Some versions of the Bible paint this pile of wrath as a wall that brings more and more separation between God and us, and this is a wall that we are building out of our own willful, haughty, judgemental hearts. (As I wrote this my thoughts strayed to Ronald Regan declaring, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.") The good news is that we can allow the Word of God to change our hearts. We can repent and submit to God's process of changing our judgemental ways. As we repent and submit, the wall crumbles into to nothingness, and fellowship is restored.
Isn't He sweet!! His desire and His provisions are all for our good, because He is good. I think that I have found my answer. I really do not believe that any of us are inherently good. Only He is good. The good that we see in each other is Him, not us. Knowing this fact keeps us from polluting our own hearts with pride, and helps to shield us from standing in judgement of someone else's heart.
It is well!
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