Judgment Vs. Mercy In Today’s World

by PadreAug 25, 2021

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Judgment Theory

One thing that I run across frequently is people’s obsession with the judgments of God. Everyone worries about if God will judge them, and they wonder why judgment falls at all. We seem to have this fascination with judgment, and, for a lot of people, it is something that they cannot get past. Why? Well, I have two theories, and they both have to do with the nature of man.

First Reason

The first reason is good old-fashioned humanism. We are so hung up on ourselves that we lack the ability to look beyond the horizon and find the truth. When I ask new converts why they chose to join the church or get saved, I get the same answer 9 out of 10 times. “I do not want to burn in hell.” I’ve asked evangelists and missionaries why they do what they do. Spend their lives preaching and ministering. They almost always have the same answer as well. “To keep people out of hell.”

Do you realize what that is? It is humanism. It is our desire to self-preserve ourselves and members of our species. We act out of desperation for a hoped-for and or desired outcome. It is selfishness that most people turn to the Lord. That makes sense when you look at things such as the rise of the prosperity gospel or the rise in the super liberal churches.

They have taken their desire for self-pleasure, whether material or worldly, and sexual then mixed it with their desire to not burn in hellfire for all eternity. As a result, the modern Christian has turned into a selfish creature.

I attended a community church once a few years ago, which was basically a social gathering with a rock concert. The pastor preached for 7 minutes. 7 Minutes. At least a Baptist preacher will preach for an hour, and if you go with me to a liturgy, well, that’s a 3-hour long event. After the service, the pastor came to talk with me, as he did with all the visitors, and I asked him about the shortness of his sermon; he responded with, “people are not here to hear me talk; they are here for an experience with God.”

This floored me, the church is a place of worship, but it is also a place of learning. So, this man makes 60k a year to talk for 7 minutes per week. It seems like a scam to me, but the people love it, and you know the pastor does as well. It is all fed by this desire for self-satisfaction.

What should the real answers to my first two questions be? It should be something along the line of, “I turned to God because He paid a ransom for me. He desires my worship, and He is worthy of it.” Why do you evangelize? “Because God instructed me to reach out to others. He desires that all the nations of the earth, too, at least get a chance to hear the gospel. I am a servant of Christ and as such, I seek to fulfill His will.”

But we won’t answer that way. It is about us, and because it is about us at all times, the fear of and worry of judgment will always be present. So we, as Christians, need to change our mentality as to why we are Christians.

Second Reason

Reason number 2 is that we are judgmental creatures. We judge everyone and everything. Rather you admit it or not; you do as well. You are judging my words that you are reading. Because we are so judgmental, we worry about being judged ourselves.

The bible even warns us not to judge others unless we are also judged.

But we do, and we are. We judge if someone is pretty or not; we judge if we like the taste of a food or not. So, our day-to-day lives are a series of judgments. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, life is just a series of choices, one right after the other, but you have to judge which choice is the best. So, life is a series of judgments, is it not?

Ultimately it boils down to this. God is not us. He does not think like us. He does not act like us. This obsession is self-induced and leads us astray from what the true topic of our faith is.

The discussion here should be about God’s mercy. Not his judgment. Even the saved will have to give an account for their lives one day, and no one avoids that on judgment day. The difference between individuals is who will receive mercy from God. We are not by nature a merciful people. Because we are not merciful, we have a hard time understanding God’s mercy towards us. Because we do not understand, we focus on what we know.

It is time to start paying a little more attention to God’s mercy on us and in our lives. And as we come to terms with mercy, perhaps we should start exercising it as well. Mercy and compassion would go a long way towards making this world a little better.