DAY FOURTEEN -- JUDGE
Arbiter, Magistrate, Adjudicator, Convictor
Reflect
As you settle into your time today, reflect on the reality that when you meet with God, you bring only a willing heart (or even a heart that wants to be made willing). You do not come to 'do', to achieve, or to accomplish any agenda. You are here to drink from the Living Fountain, and in drinking, find deep, abiding satisfaction. This is what brings glory to God -- your absolute joy and rest in His all-sufficient grace.
Ask the Holy Spirit to show you the things you need to leave behind, the agendas, the works, the efforts to commend yourself to God or others. Come empty and open handed. Sit for a few minutes in silence with your palms open on your lap. Thank God that His invitation to 'come' is always open.
Read
Read the following passages before you read the devotional. As you quietly consider these words, ask the Holy Spirit to illumine your heart today to the beauty of Jesus as Judge.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
And He ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead.
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.
Acts 10:42, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Revelation 20:11-12
On June 11, 2001, a felon named Timothy McVeigh was executed through lethal injection. Having been convicted of killing 168 people by blowing up an Oklahoma City government building, McVeigh's final words held no plea for forgiveness or whisper of remorse. Instead, he recited a famous poem that ends with this declaration:
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
(Hensley, William Ernest, "Invictus", 1885, public domain).
Though these chilling lines with which McVeigh chose to exit this world may ring with bravado right now, they will one day dissipate like ashes in the wind, as will all the deception of man concerning human sovereignty. Whether one fears death or not, has no bearing on the reality that the omnipotent, omniscient, self-existent God has set in antiquity a day in which to judge the world, a thought that ought to make any mortal tremble.
On that day of judgment, every thought and deed will be brought to light and every sin called to account. Every evil act will be vindicated, every wrong made right, every inequity brought into balance and every heart humbled before the all-seeing God. No one will escape that moment in which rich and poor, old and young, scholar and simpleton, religious and rebellious, powerful and impotent, pompous and meek, will stand beneath the fiery gaze of the one true God to give an account of our life.
There is a judgment to come, for there is a Judge. Even now, the exalted Christ sits upon a great white throne awaiting the time appointed by the Father. He alone is worthy to determine the fate of every person, for He is perfect in all His ways, without guile, hypocrisy, or unrighteousness. Jesus is an impartial Judge, having neither a hidden agenda nor a personal grudge, for when He shed His own blood on the cross of Calvary He settled sin's score once and for all.
Jesus is a powerful Judge, for He rose from the dead, defeating death and its dark forces. When revealed from Heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, He will deal out retribution to those not cleansed by His blood, demonstrating at last the justice due His holy perfection (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8). From the purity of His presence the very heavens and earth will be forced to flee (Revelation 20:11).
On that day when Jesus separates the sheep from the goats, some will find too late that it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Every person will look upon Him whom they pierced and will mourn (Revelation 1:7). Men like Timothy McVeigh will see with dread that man has never really been master of his fate or captain of his soul. Many, after bowing their knee and confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord, will face the awful agony of eternity in hell.
But for those whose debt of sin has been paid at the Cross, that last tremendous day shall dawn with splendor and delight, and not with gloom and terror (Charles Spurgeon). There before His throne they too will kneel in awe, listening to the voice of the glorious Judge as He declares their innocence. Hear it and tremble with joy, even now. Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34).
RespondThough this world is filled with injustice and evil, there is coming a day when everything will be made right through the judgment of Jesus Christ. The punishment for every sin that is not covered by His blood will be imposed in hell. How might this reality affect the way you view the Cross? The events of your life? Your world?
Jesus the Judge will examine every person who has ever lived. Under the glorious gaze of our holy Lord, we will give account for our lives. As His children, though our deeds do not save us, we will be judged by them, for they are the evidence that we've been truly transformed by the grace of God. In what ways do you see this evidence growing in your own heart and life? Ponder this, prayerfully examine your own heart, and write a prayer of response.
A Prayer
O glorious and righteous Judge, the truth that You know my deepest thoughts causes me to both tremble and rejoice. You must see that I want nothing more than to bring You glory, and yet at times the frailty of my flesh belies such a thing. You know how I ache with love for Your name and live to see it exalted, though my best efforts seem like hay and stubble. But I can only plead both now and in that final judgment that it is Your blood that covers me, for without it I would have no hope. Remind me today and every day O Judge of my heart, that only through Calvary can I ever hope to find favor in Your sight. All is from You and through You and to You forever, amen.
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Copyright © 2004 Tricia McCary Rhodes