Execute Judgment part 2
I guess you can say it like this if you want: It's not our job to judge, it's our job to execute the judgment that has been written. It's not our place to decide who deserves what. It's our place to give what our heavenly Father has given us... to everybody we come into contact with. Because that's His judgment: It wasn't a death sentance, it was a life sentence. An abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life sentence. Passed down from Father to Son. And it wasn't just for Jesus. Because when Jesus was lifted up from the earth on the cross He drew all men into Himself. And He planted Himself in all men. He drew us out of Adam and into Himself. Out of the old and into the new. Out of the lie and into the true! See, in the Old Testament it was, "Do in order to get." Or, "Do in order to be." But in the New Testament we don't do in order to be, we do because we be. We don't do in order to get. We do because we've already got! I think one of the best examples of this is comparing and contrasting Luke 6:37, which is Jesus speaking, and saying, "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." But before we compare that verse we need to understand that Jesus, at that moment, before the cross, was still preaching under the Old Covenant. That was the Law. Do, and then you can have. Forgive, and then you can be forgiven. Now look at Ephesians 4:32, "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving on another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Old Covenant: Forgive and you will be forgiven. New Covenant: Forgive, even as God has forgiven you. And notice that God didn't do it for your sake. He did it for Christ's sake. When Jesus was on the cross and prayed to His Father, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," that kind of settled the matter. We don't need forgiveness. We have forgiveness. Which (and I don't want to get too far into this but...) kind of makes me wonder how, if God forgave us all for Jesus's sake, how could anybody "go to hell when they die"? But I'll just leave that there. My point for today is, we don't have to do anything to get anything. We don't have to make anybody else do anything in order to give them what we've got. We don't have to judge. And we certainly don't have to judge by appearance. We can, and should, judge righteous judgment. We can simply take the judgment that has been written, or handed down, and execute it. We can execute this life sentence. By speaking life! Let me finish with my forgiviness example. "If you forgive the sins af any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (John 20:23 NKJV). See how powerful we are? We can keep people trapped in a cycle of shame and torment. We can be bitter and hard-hearted. We can ignore the judgment that was written and we can have horrible relationships withe people. If we don't forgive them--even though God has--how can they experience that forgiveness? And, yes, I'm sure there are people out there who don't care if you forgive them or not. Yes it's true that forgiveness is the key that opens the cell door, and then opens your eyes so that you realize YOU were the one in jail the whole time. Forgiving someone frees YOU from that bad connection or relationship, just as much as frees someone else. Let me end by saying this: You can judge people. You really can. We judge everything all the time. But there's a more excellent way. And His name is Jesus. His name is love. There was a judgment written to the entire world and it was our heavenly Father saying, "I forgive you. I am reconciling myself to you. I love you!"