Jesus: The Judge Who Brings Life
I loved Susan Fochler's talk on May 20th and follow-up encouraging email last week. She shared beautifully about the way Jesus judges – a way that brings restoration and reconciliation to our hearts and relationships. We so need Jesus’ help because we tend to perceive and judge in ways that are very destructive. Ways that bring separation and death instead of life. This dynamic started with the Fall of Adam.
This is a major reason why we need Jesus to renew our minds. (Romans 12:1-2) And, it is our re-birthright to share in the mind of Christ! (1 Cor 2:16)
Last Saturday, May 27th we explored two passages from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 - 7 where Jesus taught about perceiving and judging:
“Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!” Matthew 6:22-23 The Message
When the Greek culture of that time spoke of someone having an “evil eye”, it meant someone who was stingy and suspicious. Just after this passage, Jesus goes on to talk about choosing to serve God instead of wealth/money -- living generously instead of being stingy. And then Jesus talks about not worrying about our basic needs – about how well God provides as we simply ask, seek, and knock. Our Heavenly Father knows how to give good things to His children.
“Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”
Matthew 7:1-2 NKJV
Please note: Jesus is not saying we should ignore evil or turn off the discernment Holy Spirit gives us. In the next few verses in Matthew, Jesus tells us to be wise about not offering precious things to those who have no capacity to value them. And just a bit further, Jesus calls us to discern false prophets by the fruit of their lives (evidence of a heart relationship with Jesus).
When Judging Becomes A Snare
However, judging becomes a snare when the story I’m telling myself about a person leads me to decide what they deserve and don’t deserve, and what their value and worth is.
Have you ever sensed God challenging a story you’ve been telling yourself about someone? It’s a good thing! It means that we’re invited to “die to self” – to let go of our self-centered/self-protective projections and become open/vulnerable to Jesus’ true and life-giving perspective. This happens to Mackenzie during the cave scene in The Shack.
How This Problem Started
C. Baxter Kruger writes vividly in The Shack Revisited about what happened when Adam and Eve believed Satan’s lies about God and then ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is where our problem with perceiving and judging started. I’ve italicized or bolded some of Baxter’s words for emphasis:
“His (Satan’s) chief deception is to invite us to doubt the Lord’s goodness, creating insecurity and anxiety in us -- which in turn drives us to independent action. All of this is then shrewdly woven into the lie that we are separated from the triune God. Adam and Eve believed the whispering doubt about the goodness of the Lord. In the place of trust, love, and security rose doubt, and then fear, which inevitably turned them upon themselves. They became self-referential and “chose independence over relationship” (Shack pg 125). They became self-centered, making themselves and their own judgment their point of reference and discernment rather than relationship with the Lord.
…in the believing the lie of the evil one, they became blind. They could no longer perceive the real truth about God or about themselves. They hid from the Lord.
Why? Clearly they were afraid, but afraid of what? Of course, their hiding comes on the heels of their outright disobedience, and most people would assume that they were afraid of God’s punishment. But then again, how could Adam and Eve stand in the garden, the recipients of such astonishing blessing and love, and be afraid of the Lord? Had God changed? Had the Lord who created Adam and Eve out sheer grace and love, and poured such astounding blessing upon them, suddenly made an about-face? Had he ceased to love?
Adam projected his own brokenness onto God’s face. He tarred the Father’s face with the brush of his own angst. He took a paintbrush, dipped it into the cesspool of his own double-mindedness and guilt and shame, and painted an entirely new picture of a god with it. And it was this god, created in his own darkened imagination—not the Lord—that he feared and from whom he hid.
Adam was scared to death. How could he not be? He believed himself to be standing guilty before a divine being who was as unstable as he. From this moment, our shame will disfigure the Father’s heart. The projection of our fear will rewrite the rules of his care. He will continue to bless us beyond our wildest dreams, but in our mythology we will never see it.” The Shack Revisited by C. Baxter Kruger
God's Punishment or Our Darkened Projections?
Many of us were taught that God needed to punish mankind because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience; that God separated Himself from us until Jesus received God’s wrath and punishment on our behalf. I believe the truth is, our loving Creator never separated from us. Instead, our skewed perceptions, the projections of the darkness of our hearts upon God -- led mankind to emotionally separate from the eternal Trinity.
This lostness, this blindness is why our loving Father sent His cherished Son to Earth as a human – to reveal His true heart to us, as one like us. Jesus absorbed the full force of our fears, hatreds, and rejections into Himself on the Cross. Jesus came into our darkness so we can perceive God's light and love. This is astoundingly good news!
With trust in Y'shuah's love and goodness,
Russ Fochler |
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