It is the very first part of this verse that caught my eye today. "For the Lord is our judge," God is our judge, not our neighbor, not our spouse, parent, pastor or physician. I think that we all forget that from time to time. We think to ourselves "what will people think" and we worry about that. We dwell on that. Sometimes, we dwell on that a lot. This is an excellent reminder that the only one who truly matters is our God in Heaven. If we are doing something for Him, we need to do it with all our might and with the best of our ability. Let's say that I am in charge of "coffee and sweets" time after church, basically the social time. Every week I make the coffee and pick up a pastry of some kind from the grocery store to have with that coffee. What would I serve every week? Would I head to the day-old baked goods and pick up a few packages of sub-par sweet rolls simply because they're inexpensive? Or would I head to the bakery counter and demand several dozen of their finest wares? To me, the choice is simple. But it's how I make that choice, and not the choice itself.
What would I do if Jesus himself showed up at our church service? What would I serve him? Would I serve him stale coffee that had been reheated and day-old donuts that were lying around? If I looked up and saw that Jesus was at our social hour, you can bet that I'd be putting out the finest. I would brew up a pot of the freshest coffee, and I would pull out the fancy bakery goods in all their splendor. I would serve the best I had to offer because Jesus deserves the best. I would choose the best that I could afford- and maybe that would be the day-old donuts, but it would be the spirit of the offering, the spirit of "this is my best for my Lord" not "this is cheap and sitting around, lets give this to Him". God is the only one who is going to judge our results- I wouldn't be making coffee and pastry for Iron Chef judges, I'd be making it for Jesus. And the same attitude should be held each and every week. When I am serving my brothers and sisters in Christ, and our visitors coffee and pastry- who am I serving?
"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'" Matthew 25:34-40
No matter what we are doing, we need to do it as if we were serving our Lord, and not just another person. When we teach Sunday School, we need to do it as if young seven-year-old Jesus were in the room. When we make coffee, we need to make it as if we were going to serve Jesus himself, and not just do "enough". When we sing or play the piano, we need to sing or play our heart out each and every time, because we're singing and playing to Our God, and He deserves our best each and every time, and it really and truly doesn' t matter what anyone else thinks or says. When we scrub the bathrooms, we need to do a full and complete job, as if Jesus himself were going to do the inspection, and not just do a "good enough" job for now. I can't imagine how mortified I would be if I was standing in the seat of judgement and heard something like this: "Erika, you did well serving by cleaning the church all those years. But that one week... that one week you didn't do such a thorough job, and you left a few spiderwebs in the ladies room. And a visitor came that week, and they are terribly afraid of spiders, and they left that church and never went back. Your laziness caused one of my daughters to flee the church forever." I already know that moment of judgement is going to be tough one for us all, but the one thing I don't want to hear is that I didn't do enough because I was too worried about what other people think.
At the same time (and I know this one is getting long today), we also need to remember that it is not our job to judge either. Ever. I've written before about careful criticism, and being cautious about squelching the little faith someone has, and there's no quicker way to do this than to serve as judge for another human being. We need to remember that every person has their own individual walk with God, and that all our paths are different. We are all at different stages on our walk, and it is not our job to look over at someone struggling with an obstacle and declare that they must not have enough faith to overcome. But what we can do is pray for them, we can encourage them to hop on over that obstacle. We can offer support and encouragement and prayers, and when we start looking at others through those eyes, we'll be much better off. Imagine that we are all on a huge gameboard. We all started the moment we said "I DO" to God. The finish line is when we die and join Him in heaven. But along the way, each of us have our own path that we follow step by step. We all have different obstacles, and they all come at different times. Where one persons toughest challenges may be towards the beginning of their journey, another person's may not come until the end. But we can look over the playing field and see how everyone is doing and we can cheer each other on. We can pray and encourage, and when someone just gives up we can give them our hand and pick them back up.
It is not our job to judge. Ever.
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged." Matthew 7:1
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