Should a Christian judge people? The default answer our culture would give is, “no you don’t have the right to judge others.”

If that is the case, what gives a judge in our judicial system the right to judge, or the members of a jury? People may answer, well that is different; why?

Romans 13:1-7

13:1 Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. 4 For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister , an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. 5 Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. 7 Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. NKJV

To make a blanket statement that we are not supposed judge is really not accurate according to scripture. Consider this following verse:

1 Corinthians 2:13-16 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ. NKJV

The correct answer is “what should a Christian judge”, not should a Christian judge.

John 7:23-24 If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath? 24 Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” NKJV

So based on these truths, it is what we judge, and how we judge, that keeps us right with God and man. Jesus told us not to judge and we wouldn’t be judged. So what does this mean and what should our response be to this?

Luke 6:37 “Judge not , and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. NKJV

The contradiction is clear. Whenever we form a doctrine or belief from only one verse of scripture, we will possibly end up in error. We need to understand the Bible is a story that explains itself. I can record your conversation and take your sentences and words and reassemble them on an editor and make you say just about anything.

Don’t edit the Bible.

Read the whole story and you will have a much greater understanding of God and His ways. There are some principles in the word of God that can stand alone as irrefutable truths that are in context standing alone, but most truths need context to remain truth.

Til next week – Be blessed!

• Date - March 21, 2019
• Author - David Chisholm

Romans 11:22-23

22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity ; but toward you, goodness , if you continue in His goodness . Otherwise you also will be cut off.23 And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. NKJV

This is a continuation of lasts weeks post about a balanced life in the Lord.

Living a balanced life before God is best accomplished with a balanced diet of the word and a balanced life in the Spirit. It also comes from a balanced diet of the five fold ministry gifts. Most of us have our favorites based on our own gift and temperaments. The old saying is true – some believers are so Heavenly minded,they are little Earthly good, while others are so earthly minded,they are little Heavenly good.

I want to live in the practical AND the spiritual, the word AND the spirit, judgment AND mercy, praise AND worship, truth AND the Spirit of Truth.

So when is it acceptable to leave balance and be heavy on one side of truth? When a car is heading in a wrong direction (or an airplane) for that matter, an over-steering correction will be necessary to avoid a collision.

In flight training, one of the biggest mistakes we are trained against making is over-correcting and busting through the other directional limit. The principle is in correcting the course, making small corrections, and to be patient for the correct course to be joined. Because over-correcting can take you to the ditch on the other side of the road if not done properly or done too hastily.

I guess the best answer of whether something is an over-correction or not would be the immediate danger of not making a radical change. It may have taken you five seconds to drift over the line, but the next second could kill you! Jerking the steering wheel may cause some fright and startle in the passengers, but it will save their lives.

I believe the message of the gospel is a lot like this.

Jude 20-23

20 Main But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. 22 And on some have compassion, making a distinction; 23 but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. NKJV

That is definitely two ways of presenting the truth!

It is clear that one size doesn’t fit all when presenting the Gospel or even confronting a wayward believer. What brought you to Christ? The love of mercy or the fear of Judgment? For me it was the fear of judgment. Were you self-righteous or under the power of shame? I was self-righteous, so I had to be pulled down, others under shame may need lifted up. You see I knew God loved me, I never doubted that, I needed someone to “scare the hell” out of me! I had gotten used to believing in God, but living more like hell than heaven, more like the devil, than Jesus.

The clear message here is, the way you view a certain truth may not be the way another views the same truth, and you may both be right or wrong. I love the old saying, “don’t judge a man till you have walked a mile in his shoes”. How true indeed. I have had a lifetime of warfare about falsely judging a person or situation before knowing all the facts, only to be humbled in my own judgment when the truth was fully known. I, like most humans, have a predisposed nature to assume the worst. The longer you live, the more the evidence piles up to support that attitude, just ask any law enforcement officer.

John 7:24

24 Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” NKJV

I am somewhat opinionated for sure, but I work hard to keep a lot of opinions to myself. I bite my tongue daily. For all you opinionated people reading this remember, you will have a stricter judgment! That ought to tame the most choleric of us for sure! If it were not for the prophetic gift that operates upon me when I preach, I know I would err to pleasing men. However, when I open my mouth to preach, Jesus the Lion roars against the worldliness of His Church. I recognize there is an overemphasis at times on certain aspects of the Kingdom to jerk the church out of the ditch. It is the Prophets and Apostles who are tasked with this assignment and that is why they are the most hated and persecuted. People don’t like having their comfort zones challenged for sure. More than one parent has confronted me after a service and told me they were offended that I said their gay son or daughter would not inherit the Kingdom of God. Then they went and found a church led by a mercy motivated Pastor who would never say “anything so insensitive.”

There are many days I feel the message was too hard, “and this is one reason I know it isn’t me”, but we have lost control of the holiness and godliness in the culture of the Church and I believe the Lord has jerked the wheel and is trying to avoid eternal collisions between lukewarm backslidden Christians and the fires of hell!.

Nevertheless I continue to monitor the content and spirit of the message and culture of the house we live in. I do know this, when we finally get to heaven two things will surprise us, who is there and who is not!

Be blessed!

• Date - March 13, 2019
• Author - David Chisholm

Goodness and Severity

I am alarmed today at the unbalanced presentation of the Kingdom of God to our culture by the mainstream church. Is a half truth the truth or not? There is a gift inside my heart that the Lord gave me that feels like spiritual equilibrium. It is like an internal gyroscope that causes me to discern when the truth is not being presented in the balanced nature of God. I say it is a gift because it was not so much learned as felt. I can’t always put my finger on what I am feeling, but I know when the church is unbalanced. I personally believe this is part of the gift of an Apostle (from the Lord) and I know I have that gift by the fruit of what has been done through me by the Lord for the last 35 years.

In Romans 11, the Apostle Paul is trying to explain to the Gentile church how they were included in the Kingdom by being grafted in by faith and basically not to get a big head toward Israel who for a time was cut off.

Romans 11:19-23

19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.”

20 Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear.

21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.

22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity ; but toward you, goodness , if you continue in His goodness . Otherwise you also will be cut off.

23 And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. NKJV

The message of eternal security is challenged in this passage as well as many others. “If you don’t continue, you also will be cut off.” It wouldn’t be just of God to say Israel could be saved then lost, and not the Gentiles would it? They were saved by faith just as we are and was revealed by Abraham, as his “faith was accounted as righteousness.” The Passion translation calls the severity of God the “strict justice of God.”

When the Kingdom message is presented with only the goodness and not the severity of God, it is no longer the accurate portrayal of the nature of the Kingdom.

The fear of the Lord is still the fear of the Lord in the New Covenant. When you remove the strict justice of God’s nature and make it all goodness and mercy the results are always the same, people will continue to live in the pleasure of sin. Here is what the Apostle Paul warned about this presumptive attitude:

Romans 5:20-6:7

20 Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more,
21 so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 6

6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,

6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. NKJV

God has a balanced nature and we should imitate Him.

Psalm 85:10

10 Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed. NKJV

Our God is a loving Father and we need to see Him in the light of the truth, we will dig deeper into this next week!

Be Blessed!

• Date - March 5, 2019
• Author - David Chisholm