God, as is His wont, has once again ruined for me a perfectly good moment of schadenfreude.
I was just minding my own business, watching this most excellent YouTube offering, in which a foul-mouthed fatty "goes off" on some fast-food restaurant workers.
Yeah, but y'know, the threat of being watched and exposed (even if only by God), like all threats of any kind of punishment, is really only going to keep your outward behavior in check. It may inspire shame, but not guilt. It will not, by itself, change your heart. The obedience God desires from us includes His top two commandments, both of which start with the word "Love" -- which has to come from the heart to be real.
I have my doubts that the Jack Chick Movie Screen O' Judgment is true. If God has truly forgiven our sins, and removed them as far from us as east from west, why would He then embark on the seemingly passive-aggressive display of them before the whole universe? I do think that what we have made of ourselves will be manifest in the world to come -- but remember, for the redeemed, that means who/what you are when Christ is done sanctifying us.
Okay, so maybe it won't be movies. Maybe it'll just be books:
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
Hmmm ... well if the dead will be judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books ... don't you think it would have to be "read into the court record" so to speak?
Isn't the picture here of God as judge over our deeds? And, wouldn't He (as a just judge) have to present us with the evidence against us?
Funny! As far as I am from the spiritual consensus here, I couldn't help wondering what I would have done had I been in the room with Mr. Irascible...
Would it have been an act of love to shut him up? I have a feeling the children and their parents in the room would have thought so--at least toward them.
6 comments:
Yeah, but y'know, the threat of being watched and exposed (even if only by God), like all threats of any kind of punishment, is really only going to keep your outward behavior in check. It may inspire shame, but not guilt. It will not, by itself, change your heart. The obedience God desires from us includes His top two commandments, both of which start with the word "Love" -- which has to come from the heart to be real.
I have my doubts that the Jack Chick Movie Screen O' Judgment is true. If God has truly forgiven our sins, and removed them as far from us as east from west, why would He then embark on the seemingly passive-aggressive display of them before the whole universe? I do think that what we have made of ourselves will be manifest in the world to come -- but remember, for the redeemed, that means who/what you are when Christ is done sanctifying us.
Okay, so maybe it won't be movies. Maybe it'll just be books:
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
-- Revelation 20:12
That doesn't mean God will recite everything that's in the books...
Hmmm ... well if the dead will be judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books ... don't you think it would have to be "read into the court record" so to speak?
Isn't the picture here of God as judge over our deeds? And, wouldn't He (as a just judge) have to present us with the evidence against us?
This all makes sense with respect to the condemned. It makes less sense with respect to the redeemed.
Funny! As far as I am from the spiritual consensus here, I couldn't help wondering what I would have done had I been in the room with Mr. Irascible...
Would it have been an act of love to shut him up? I have a feeling the children and their parents in the room would have thought so--at least toward them.
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