Attractive Judgment

The sins of some people are conspicuous and precede them to judgment, while the sins of others follow them there. So also good works are conspicuous; and even when they are not, they cannot remain hidden. (1 Timothy 5:24-25 NRSV)

I found myself in a discussion last week in church about judgment and I was racking my brain to figure out where to find a text I wanted to share to help explain a point. I had no idea where it was located so I simply had to try to paraphrase it as best I could since I didn't have my computer with me to look it up. I have obviously become quite dependent on my computer to help me locate what I am looking for in the Bible most of the time.

I realize that it would be better to have all the texts memorized so that I could refer to them any time I need to, but there are at least a couple reasons why I haven't done that. One is that my mind is struggling to just remember even what I did a few minutes ago. I am very suspicious that the amalgam used in most of my teeth many years ago are having their effect poisoning my system and causing recall problems on a grand scale now. I wish that I could have all of these fillings replaced but at present do not have the funds to do so. The second reason is that in my mind I have always associated having many texts memorized with people who tend to have done so in order to bombard others with proof texts during arguments in attempts to force them into believing certain doctrines. This is highly offensive to me – the forcing part that is – and I believe it reflects a very wrong spirit that is unlike the Spirit of Jesus.

I realize that having texts committed to memory is not a bad thing in the least and is actually a very good safeguard against temptation. I have grappled with this issue for most of my life and still don't have a definitive answer for it. But I do feel that it is very important to have the mind filled with the Word of God to overflowing whether or not one can instantly spit out the exact chapter and verse where it is located. I am even now experiencing the effects of increased exposure to the Word of God. The Spirit often brings to my mind things that I have read and pondered and struggled to understand more clearly. But somehow I believe it is much more important to have the content and value of a passage firmly rooted in the mind and heart than it is to be able to outdo everyone else around you in being able to know exactly where it is found, though that can certainly be helpful at times.

Well, that is not what I set out to share initially this morning. What I started out wanting to say is that just a couple days later after not being able to remember where the text was that I wanted to use, that while reading ahead in 1 Timothy where I have been studying for awhile now, I suddenly came across the very verse that I was looking for. As I read the verse and the following one I couldn't help but feel more urging to really understand these verses more clearly.

These are verses that in some translations particularly are not exactly real clear as to their meaning. So when that is the case I find it helpful to check out a number of other translations to see what insight I can get from that method. Then I also went to the Greek and looked at each word to see what sense I might detect from the original words that might shed light or give insights that are sometimes not so clear in the English versions.

What I concluded, at least so far, is that the NRSV seems to have the most obvious wording that helps me on the way to unpacking these verses initially. But I also want to pray and listen to anything God might have to further enhance my awareness of the real truth in these verses as well as to discover any related texts that might help me understand it better. This verse has been constant in my mind for several days now and because of that I feel that God is wanting me to pursue a deeper revelation about truth and about Him through this window of Scripture.

Yesterday I wrote for about three hours on this very issue as it relates to judgment. Once I started I felt compelled to keep writing until most of what was coming to me was captured. I really don't know what plans God has for some of these writings, whether they will turn into public talks of some sort or will be resources for someone else who is much better at verbalizing insights than I am. But one of the first complementing texts that came to my attention was this one.

He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, But he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion. (Proverbs 28:13)

As I have become more keenly aware over the past few years of the real meaning and significance behind many religious terms and words that have long been obscured by tradition, I have suddenly seen very different but clearer truths as I go back and read things that I have read many times but could not perceive before. I am realizing that religion has hijacked so many words and given them subtly different meanings that there is quite literally a parallel language developed that is now almost universally embraced while the deeper, clearer message of the gospel has been nearly obscured in the process.

As I have taken time to explore and dig up the buried or forgotten meanings of each word and then put them back together the way the Bible presents them, I am amazed at the beauty, the clarity and the radical difference there is between the philosophies of religion that I grew up being taught and that is still all around me, and the real power in the Word of God as it was originally intended to be. This is an ongoing process and I continue to try to keep my mind open to further clarification of words, phrases and concepts that are still confusing or that still insinuate subtle lies about God promoted by the enemy of our souls.

These verses may be a classic example of typically misunderstood passages due to lack of careful examination and meditation. Also, if one has in their mind the typical ideas about judgment as being an event in the future where God is going to make forceful determinations about everyone's fate as they are singled out for interrogation and sentencing, then this verse and a great many others are going to be somewhat confusing at best. Because we have generally associated judgment with feelings of condemnation and shame, we have been unable to discern the much deeper and exciting truths that are all over the place but remain hidden from our awareness.

But it is becoming more and more clear to me that the true meaning of judgment in the context of the Word of God (I am not talking about the counterfeit judicial systems here on earth) is much more along the order of natural consequences and is about the public exposure through specific circumstances that will allow everyone to see clearly what is really going on in a person's heart. Judgment is the revealing of the real motives that we have attempted to hide, the real feelings that we have harbored in secret, the deep cravings and thoughts that we believed were known only to us. This comes about, not due to God suddenly forcing people to come out into the open or arbitrarily declaring the secret things of their hearts against their will; but God is so wise and skilled in guiding circumstances and events that these secret things will be able to be seen by all due to the full maturation and outgrowth from the process of the thoughts themselves.

I don't know if I was able to explain that very well or not. But I am sure that many people will vehemently disagree with my viewpoint on this concerning the nature of the judgment. But that is O.K. I am personally accountable to God first and foremost in my search for real truth as is each person around me. This is what is becoming very clear to me and it is enabling me to open many other doors in the Bible and discover amazing insights that were hidden from me all my life because of my confusion and fear about the true nature of judgment.

When I came to realize that God is not in the business of condemnation – ever – then my views of judgment were forced to be reexamined and redefined if I was to maintain personal integrity of belief. I have spent years meditating and studying and praying about this subject, and the more I have learned and been impressed by God's Spirit the more excited I get about how good and perfect and wise God really is in the way He does things and relates to us.

What I am coming to realize, sometimes with the help of other resources and teachings that I have received, is that this process called judgment – the exposure of the secrets of the heart – is actually something very important that we need to be experiencing right now. It can be a fatal mistake to believe that the judgment is only something that is going to be imposed on us at some point in time far off in the distant future. There is an enormous amount of false teachings about judgment that elicits much fear and that are used to enforce control-oriented religions based on condemnation and intimidation. That is very convenient and useful for those who desire to maintain control over the minds of others and manipulate them through the use of abusive religious practices. But this is not the ways of the God of heaven as revealed in the Bible when it is properly understood. This is the result of massive errors and false assumptions about God accumulating over centuries through spiritual abuse of the Scriptures.

But over the past few years I have become much more aware of the very important aspect of internal healing of damaged emotions, of our great need for repair and replacement of many lies deeply embedded in painful memories from our past or locked in through trauma that has been hidden away from our consciousness but still strongly effects our relationships and perceptions. It is becoming much more obvious to me how much our religious experience and our relationship with God and those around us is nearly totally dominated and manipulated by our deep beliefs about reality formed during traumatic events in our past but often mostly forgotten by our conscious minds today. Those beliefs embedded deep in our hearts actually dictate to a very great extent how we really feel about life, about reality and about our identity and value far more than our conscious, intellectual beliefs that are stored in our more familiar left-brain libraries.

It is the much deeper and more powerful negative beliefs in our hearts rooted in various memories from our past that define how we perceive reality and truth to a large extent. And it is into these very places of pain and embedded lies that Jesus wants to bring the most radical healing and truth, in the emotional, right-brain part of our make-up. This is precisely what He addressed in His mission statement when He first began His earthly ministry.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19 NRSV)

Over the past few years I have become more and more convinced that it is in the heart where all real religion, true spirituality has to take place primarily. The facts we learn, the doctrines we believe, the rules we subscribe to are all secondary and are only important as they help or hinder the condition of our heart and our spirit before God. Now when I read a text like this one in 1 Timothy, I have a very different perspective on what it may be trying to tell me about the judgment. It also correlates with some other things that Jesus talked about when it comes to the positive things that may be seen in our life as well.

Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:1-4)