Acts 10:42-43

During our life on earth, Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. However, as our days here draw to a close, and especially at the end of time, He takes His seat as Judge and prepares to reward believers for the good things they did in His name.

I think there is a widespread misconception that God the Father will be our judge. But it is Christ who gave us, His followers, the charge to go into the world and make disciples (Matt. 28:19). Therefore, He has been given the right to determine which of our actions and thoughts furthered His goal (John 5:22).

Christ is an impartial judge. He is not influenced by what others think or say, but rather, He determines what is right and good based on His honorable, just standard. We’ll be stripped of our worthless works–in other words, the actions and words we used for selfish ambition or vain conceit. All that will remain are the worthwhile things we thought, said, and did to honor God. These are the valuable parts of our lives for which we will be rewarded.

Reward is the whole point of placing believers before the judgment seat of Christ. Shame and guilt over past sin and mistaken motivation have no place there (Rom. 8:1). Our loving Savior is eager to show us our heavenly treasure.

Christ will expose the real you at the judgment seat by casting away the worthless things you’ve done. What remains will be the man or woman who endeavored to please the Lord. Let us determine to be powerful reflections of our Savior, both on earth and in heaven.

 An editorial from The Wall Street Journal some years ago still comes to mind as I occasionally watch the news. The writer was describing host Larry King’s unsettling interview of a father whose wife drowned each of their five children. Peering restlessly at the television before him, the writer believed he saw not only a disturbing interview, but a rare glimpse into the culture at large. As the father spoke of his unwavering support for his wife on national television, the mother who committed the crimes sat in a courtroom thousands of miles away receiving her sentence for the murders of their five children at that very moment. When asked how he thought his wife would do in prison, he replied that she’d do just fine, adding, “She’s a good woman.”

 But the writer’s angst went deeper than his discomfort over the descriptor of the mother as good, a term to which many predictably objected the following day. He noted, rather, his discomfort over the fact that the interview itself was conducted with the same work principle of any another day in the life of modern television reporting: “Interview anyone, ask anything.” To him, that the father was even there, that Larry asked, and that we looked on, bordered a sick voyeurism. How could we call any of it good? He concluded powerfully, “There are moments when one wants to go out to the street, stare up at the stars in the dark sky and admit, I don’t get it anymore… People keep looking for reasons inside this case. I keep wondering what’s happening to all the rest of us, soaking up these recurring, weird events from our living rooms.”(1) 

 The writer makes an observation many of us are afraid to make when it comes to delving out goodness around us: Is there not something unsettling about our misuse of the definition of good? Indeed, what does it mean to be good? Who decides if a person is actually good? The courts? A television audience? Larry King? And when do those of us watching move from sincere concern to shameless curiosity?

 Is there an inherent determiner for naming something good? Can it really arise from no where? And if we use it broadly enough will we get to the point when the word itself is void of meaning? Perhaps we already have. 

 A strikingly similar question was voiced thousands of years ago in a conversation between two men—one, a rich young person; the other, a rabbi from Nazareth known for his strange stories and gossip-worthy surprises. The young man approached Jesus with a pressing question, unthinkingly addressing him as “Good teacher” before muttering out the inquiry. But Jesus didn’t get past the title. “Why do you call me good?” he asked. “Isn’t no one good but God alone?”(2)

 Perhaps as unthinkingly as the rich young ruler, countless minds have observed for years that Jesus was a good man. We would in fact be hard-pressed to find people today who would be comfortable calling Jesus a bad man or anything less than a good person. But indeed, what do we mean by good?

 In a world where ideas creep slowly, making subtle changes that go unnoticed until havoc has been wreaked and we are left like this author wondering what is happening, we do well to ask ourselves what we mean and where it comes from.  G.K. Chesterton warned us several decades ago that we were tearing fences down before inquiring as to why they were up in the first place. And Jesus more than two thousand years ago inquired as to our very use of the word good: If this world is little more than a happy accident, why do you call me good? Why do you call anything good? No one is good except God alone. His statement was not meant to make us all feel like bad people. In fact it is interesting that we so strongly desire to call people good and believe that a generic, groundless goodness will suffice. But Jesus powerfully probes the worldview that assigns goodness without a foundation. What does it mean to be good? Who decides? And does a worldview without a moral God have any basis for speaking of goodness in the first place? Jesus suggests it does not. For God gives us the very meaning of goodness. God alone is the cause and source of all that is good.

 Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

 (1) Daniel Henninger, “She Got Life, He Was Live,” Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2002.
(2) See Mark 10:13-23.

Morning “God is jealous.” / Nahum 1:2

Your Lord is very jealous of your love, O believer. Did he choose you? He
cannot bear that you should choose another. Did he buy you with his own blood?
He cannot endure that you should think that you are your own, or that you
belong to this world. He loved you with such a love that he would not stop in
heaven without you; he would sooner die than you should perish, and he cannot
endure that anything should stand between your heart’s love and himself. He is
very jealous of your trust. He will not permit you to trust in an arm of
flesh. He cannot bear that you should hew out broken cisterns, when the
overflowing fountain is always free to you. When we lean upon him, he is glad,
but when we transfer our dependence to another, when we rely upon our own
wisdom, or the wisdom of a friend–worst of all, when we trust in any works of
our own, he is displeased, and will chasten us that he may bring us to
himself. He is also very jealous of our company. There should be no one with
whom we converse so much as with Jesus. To abide in him only, this is true
love; but to commune with the world, to find sufficient solace in our carnal
comforts, to prefer even the society of our fellow Christians to secret
intercourse with him, this is grievous to our jealous Lord. He would fain have
us abide in him, and enjoy constant fellowship with himself; and many of the
trials which he sends us are for the purpose of weaning our hearts from the
creature, and fixing them more closely upon himself. Let this jealousy which
would keep us near to Christ be also a comfort to us, for if he loves us so
much as to care thus about our love we may be sure that he will suffer nothing
to harm us, and will protect us from all our enemies. Oh that we may have
grace this day to keep our hearts in sacred chastity for our Beloved alone,
with sacred jealousy shutting our eyes to all the fascinations of the world!

Evening “I will sing of mercy and judgment.” / Psalm 101:1

Faith triumphs in trial. When reason is thrust into the inner prison, with her
feet made fast in the stocks, faith makes the dungeon walls ring with her
merry notes as she cries, “I will sing of mercy and of judgment. Unto thee, O
Lord, will I sing.” Faith pulls the black mask from the face of trouble, and
discovers the angel beneath. Faith looks up at the cloud, and sees that

“‘Tis big with mercy and shall break

In blessings on her head.”

There is a subject for song even in the judgments of God towards us. For,
first, the trial is not so heavy as it might have been; next, the trouble is
not so severe as we deserved to have borne; and our affliction is not so
crushing as the burden which others have to carry. Faith sees that in her
worst sorrow there is nothing penal; there is not a drop of God’s wrath in it;
it is all sent in love. Faith discerns love gleaming like a jewel on the
breast of an angry God. Faith says of her grief, “This is a badge of honour,
for the child must feel the rod;” and then she sings of the sweet result of
her sorrows, because they work her spiritual good. Nay, more, says Faith,
“These light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for me a far
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” So Faith rides forth on the black
horse, conquering and to conquer, trampling down carnal reason and fleshly
sense, and chanting notes of victory amid the thickest of the fray.

“All I meet I find assists me

In my path to heavenly joy:

Where, though trials now attend me,

Trials never more annoy.

“Blest there with a weight of glory,

Still the path I’ll ne’er forget,

But, exulting, cry, it led me

To my blessed Saviour’s seat.”

I will sing of steadfast love and justice.   Psalm 101:1

 Faith is triumphant in trial. When reason has her feet fastened in the stocks of the inner prison, faith makes the dungeon walls ring with her happy notes as she cries, “I will sing of steadfast love and justice; to you, O LORD, I will make music.” Faith pulls the dark mask from the face of trouble and discovers the angel beneath. Faith looks up at the cloud and sees that

“It is big with mercy and will break

In blessings on her head.”

There is a subject for song even in the judgments of God toward us. For, first, the trial is not as difficult as it might have been; next, the trouble is not as severe as we deserved; and our affliction is not as crushing as the burden that others have to carry. Faith sees that in her deepest sorrow there is no punishment. There is not a drop of God’s wrath in it; it is all sent in love. Faith finds love gleaming like a jewel on the breast of an angry God. Faith wears her grief “like a badge of honor” and sings of the sweet result of her sorrows, because they work for her spiritual good. Faith says, “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”1 So faith rides out in victory, trampling down earthly wisdom and carnal knowledge, and singing songs of triumph where the battle rages.

All I meet I find assists me

In my path to heavenly joy:

Where, though trials now attend me,

Trials never more annoy.

Blest there with a weight of glory,

Still the path I’ll not forget,

But, exulting, cry, it led me

To my blessed Savior’s seat.

12 Corinthians 4:17

Family Reading Plan   Ezekiel 15  Psalm 57