People Can Change Dramatically
But it is inconvenient to believe this.
When I judge others it means, at least in my mind, they will be frozen to their past mistakes and behaviors. This is a problem because how I see people determines how I will treat them.
Certainly we need law courts and judges to maintain civic order, but these processes are public in nature. They should be dealing with true criminal actions, and some of these actions, if someone is found guilty, should result in reasonable sentences fitting the severity of the crime. Of course the legal system is far from perfect, even flawed, because it is part of mankind’s broken nature. But even though this is the case, at least there is built into it opportunities for correction of legal errors. There is an appeal process. Less so, for the most part, on the personal level — my judgement level.
When we as individuals, in our own personal relationship spheres, pass judgement on others it usually means we have deemed them unforgivable and, therefore, unredeemable. What they have been they will always be in our eyes.
Sure, people in the Bible changed, but for most people in today’s post-Christian world this is no longer a standard or guide. When moral instructions are lost as being considered by society to be of any value, the result is that every currently living younger generation will see itself as more enlightened and wiser than all who have gone before, both living and dead. No moral instruction results usually in producing inflated egos and stone cold hearts.
In addition to a failure in moral instruction, there is also a strong societal incentive to stratify the population. It is a way to control upward mobility and keep others down. After all, the more people overcome and recover from failures and are forgiven and helped, the more they may be able to obtain more prestigious jobs or positions.
A system that ranks worthiness and worthlessness is useful for those with the Darwinian mind seeking to climb to the highest human heights of power and control. It is a very scary thing to be governed by those who can easily rank the worth of others. This is how concentration camps and their equivalent can suddenly materialize in prosperous nations.
But God.
God counters this power grab by those who do not recognize him, and therefore also do not care about the neediest humans in our midst, in a very interesting, and for them, most frustrating way. It is a way that results in a lot of teeth gnashing.
He ages all people out of existence. He controls the game’s timer. Eventually all will weaken and die, regardless their net worth.
But those who know God personally will pass from this life to the next in the blink of an eye. For those willing to let God be the judge and who are willing to love others in his name, death will be but a small blip in a life that will continue to just get sweeter over time.
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
1 Corinthians 15:51-55 (ESV)
