“Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of his judgement has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea, and springs of water.” (Revelation 14:7 – NKJV)
For many humans, time is a horizontal concept. We start at birth and travel through time until we die, and we are considered to have reached the “end of the line.” We can’t jump ahead in time as if it were a book to be read. Whether we’re reading a print or e-book, if we’re uncomfortable where we are in the book, we can flip through the pages to see where the story line may take us. We can do the same with movies or videos—but we can’t do that with life. For whatever reason, the only way to get through time is to live through it.
One of the hardest things about life is that we don’t even get to know the results of our actions until after the actions have taken place. We see someone jumping into a lake and assume that he is trying to commit suicide; so we jump in after him, dragging him to the shore. Then we discover that he was trying to save his dog who was drowning.
Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, says, “Everything in life has its price.” This goes for the good stuff as well as the bad stuff; and the problem is that not only do we not know which action is good and which is bad, we often don’t know what that price will be until afterward.
If we look at life as a giant warehouse store, Judgement Day would be the checkout counter.
After meandering through the store, we take our life experiences to the cashier who rings up the total. That’s when we discover the results of our actions. Do we have enough good to cover all the bad?
The nice thing is that Christians follow the teaching that, if we believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that he was sent to earth to pay the price for all our sins, it’s like we have unlimited credit that can be used to cover all our experiences. That can be a difficult concept to wrap our heads around!
The idea of purgatory can help. If we’ve been pretty bad but we believe in Jesus Christ, we may end up in purgatory until we can work off the sins we’ve accumulated before going to heaven. We don’t have to go to hell if we’ve been to purgatory.
Revelation talks a lot about a Day of Judgement when Christ will come to earth to judge everyone. The good thing is that Jesus will be the judge – not man.
The hard thing is that we don’t always know what measuring stick he will use. That’s why it might not be a bad idea to give him glory and to worship him only. It’s a thought!
Becky Gillette is a former teacher, newspaper reporter, and preacher who seeks to take an original approach to life’s lessons. She has recently published her first book, Jessie’s Corner: Something To Think About, which is now available for purchase. Based on several lesser-known scriptures from the Bible, this is a collection of articles which she wrote for a weekly newspaper.
