I’m awfully glad that the criteria for getting into heaven is not that of being a good person. If that was the case, I would have no hope of ever measuring up.
While some people might look at me and think that I am a good person, I know in my heart, that I am anything but good. I know, if left to my own desires, I am evil.
Do you know the phrase, “if looks could kill”? Well, if that were true and looks could kill, I would have killed a lot of people. Not to mention the spiteful and judgmental things I have said.
It’s easy to look at others and sigh and think, “how can they be so wrong”? Being judgmental of others seems to come naturally to humans. What is funny is that the thing that we are judging others about is generally something that we are guilty of ourselves.
For some people, it is how a person looks. For others, it is what type of a job that person has. It could be their house, their car, or their political beliefs. It could even be something as ridiculous as their hair-do or whether or not they are following the same nutritional regime that we are, whether it be keto, paleo, vegan, etc. etc. etc.
We want others to fall right into line with our way of thinking and doing. I bet what we really want is for them to fall right in line behind us. After all, we’ve got it all together and if we are for something, it is obviously the best. And who better to lead the parade than us?
Well, at least that is how we think most of the time. But when it comes right down to it, we all know that we are lacking. It is the reason why we are on a never-ending quest to get better and better.
We seem to feel that, someday, we will find just the right mix of trends to follow or good works to do that will make us great. It will be the mix that lets us stop thinking of ourselves as dismal failures.
I don’t know about you, but anything I have tried to build out of my own quest for perfection has failed miserably.
Whenever that happens, I realize once again, that I am not as good as others seem to be. I wonder how it is that they can have such wonderful lives and have it so well together and I don’t.
Because of that, I become even more critical of others. I want to bring them down to my level so I can feel like I am just as good as they are. Or maybe it is that I want them to be as much of a failure as I am.
For whatever reason, this kind of thinking is doomed to be an ever repeating cycle. Judging others is a sure way to unhappiness. It is spiteful and petty and is only a cover-up for how you feel about yourself.
Some people extend this type of thinking to religion. Even born-again Christians (or maybe, especially this group) can, at many times, be hypercritical of others. It’s one of the reasons why non-Christians call them hypocrites.
We can say, this person is living with these sins, so they can’t be a Christian. With whatever their lifestyle, they simply can’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
We seem to look beyond the sins that we do day-to-day and yet, we know that Jesus loves us and continues to forgive us. We forget that Jesus met us right in the middle of our sins, no matter what those sins were.
Living in open rebellion in sin is something that all Christians do. It is when we start calling sin something other than what it is, that the problems begin in truth. It is when we twist the Bible teaching to mean something other than the obvious meaning that we can be in real trouble with God.
It doesn’t mean that that individual is no longer a Christian, it just means that they have walked away from the truth of the Bible.
The true measure of Christianity is whether or not they believe what the Bible says to be true. A person needs to enter into a true relationship with Jesus as their savior and repent of their sins.
They can’t whitewash their sins and say that xyz isn’t a sin because I don’t want to stop. I don’t repent of that because it isn’t a sin. God will want me to continue in this way because it feels good and he wants me to have my way.
Still, whether or not an individual is a Christian is between that person and God. I don’t know their hearts and minds. They certainly don’t know mine.
I want to stop my judging of others. I want to see them as Jesus does and not the way I think they should be.
Notwithstanding that, if someone starts teaching heretical ways, I won’t hang around to see how sincere they are in what they believe. It doesn’t matter their sincerity. What matters is that the Bible is true. It says what is true because it is the word of God to the world. God is good and true and so is his word.
As I said at the beginning, I am so glad that being good is not the criteria to get into heaven. What is the criteria is acknowledging that I am not good, that I am evil at heart and that I am a sinner. By doing so and accepting the sacrifice that Jesus made to take away my punishment for my sins, I will go to heaven.
At the end of this life or when Jesus comes again, whichever is first, I will be dancing in the streets of heaven along with so many other people it will be a wondrous sight to behold.
Matthew 7:1-5
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”