Only God Can Judge Me

As many of us walk out our faith, the phrase only God can judge me is spoken quite frequently. I'm not going to take our time to examine whether that's biblically true, but rather the motive of the heart behind it.

When I first became a Christian, I took a few Bible verses and built my entire theology around those. When I would read the bible, and come across something that challenge it, I would just kind of skim over it and assume it must be for another time to understand. It wasn't until I started studying the whole Bible, and looking at the original language used that my few verse theology started to unravel at the seams.

I wasn't a Christ follower even though I was a "Christian" for many years. I didn't actually understand the Bible verse "Those that love me obey my commands." I really believed that I could walk into heaven holding Satan's hand, because grace, you know? 

I would be lying to you to say that I completely understand where the line is that engaging in sin while being a follower of Christ forfeits the Kingdom of God. I mean, we have the Bible verse that tells us what God hates and is even an abomination to Him, we have another Bible verse that tells us those that do these things will not inherit the Kingdom of God, and another one that tells us that we are dead to sin. I am not a Bible scholar, and I will continue to search these things out, but I don't need an exact answer.

Regardless, while searching out scripture is a priceless use of our time, the point of this blog post is to go after the motive of the heart. 

I spent years ignoring God's voice and looking for loopholes where I wouldn't lose my place as His beloved daughter, but could live as the world lives. Does that sound like a heart that truly loves Jesus, or rather somebody looking for hellfire insurance? My heart even felt hurt when He would place it upon my heart to do something He wasn't asking other people to do. I most certainly struggled with rebellion which is a pretty serious sin. Yet, His desire is to love me, and that I would receive that love and choose to return it. I praise God that I finally got better at listening, even if it's only Him that I listen to. 

C'mon y'all, there were people who literally performed healing miracles and delivered people from demonic possession, and they heard the Lord say to them something along the lines of depart from me workers of iniquity. I never knew you.

WHAT?!? I bet these people took care of the widows and orphans too. I bet they had a good works list a mile long, yet they didn't enter into the kingdom. 

WHY?!? For this, I'm sure you can find much better explanations on Google, but I believe it's because of their hearts. Their heart motives weren't pure. They weren't wanting to live in communion with the Lord, filled with gratitude and contentment, overflowing with joy, marked by peace, even as the storms raged on around them. They probably were living to make themselves feel like they earned their place among the followers of Christ. I bet they probably considered themselves very good people, role models even.

I believe they never stewarded a relationship with the One who allowed Himself to be crucified for their sins. If you're a Christian, I'd like to ask you how often do you hear His gentle voice leading you by thoughts or unctions. If the answer is not daily/all the time, I'd encourage you to take 31 days and seek Him.

Skip a show or a few chapters of your book everyday and sit before Him. One of a myriad of examples would be to take your Bible and your notebook, tell God you want to spend time in His presence, pray that He would give you revelational wisdom and understanding as you read His word. Read a Proverb for every day of this experiment, and then after reading set the timer for 5-10 minutes and ask him if there's anything He wants to tell you or show you, and sit in silence, eyes closed and see if anything crosses your mind. Write down every thought you had over those 10 minutes. 

By the end of 31 days, you will notice a marked difference in your ability to discern God's thoughts from yours, and hopefully desire to spend more than 10 minutes!

It is imperative to know His voice, because His sheep hear His voice. We are not speaking about the audible voice of God, but rather how He speaks to you personally in your thoughts or by unctions, while you continue to study His word. 

God certainly did not create us to all look, speak, and act like little cookie cutter Christians. He loves the uniqueness in the body of Christ, and it's literally how He made us. He doesn't want us pointing out each other's flaws to others, and excluding people who are still walking out of deception. 

He wants us to love as He did. That doesn't mean humoring people's deception, but you can love them as He speaks to them. The word of God is only useful for instruction and correction for those that belong in his family. Jesus seemed to be the biggest stumbling block for the spirit of religion AKA the pharisees. Granted, the thieves weren't loving him to much when they set up shop in the house of prayer either. Anywho, my point being that we need to make sure God is asking us to speak correction, before thinking we're doing our godly duty to do so. Maybe He just wants us to intercede for them? 

It is absolutely true that only God knows what exactly is in your heart, but I hope it's your heart to ask Him to help you love Him more. For eye has not seen, nor ear has heard, nor heart has entertained all that God has for those who love Him. And that's the TRUTH.

For me, and my household, we will serve the Lord. I trust Him to work out every detail of our hearts that aren't fully in accord with His. I wholeheartedly believe we'll get there.