Tomorrow I have to report for jury duty. Somehow or other I’ve always managed to dodge that bullet. I’ve either had babies, have postponed it because of prior plans or my number was dismissed. This time there were no excuses and my number was on the frontline.
I like the IDEA of being on a jury. I’m sure it could be fascinating. I just don’t like giving up the time it takes from regular life to do it.
And it made me think. I’m really glad that my daily life is not based on a jury system. Yet, I think that as a people pleaser (or recovering one) that’s how I’m living sometimes. As if the judgment of others is what matters. That my life is in the balance based on what people think of my performance.
People will judge. It’s inevitable. You and I will judge. It’s human nature. And though we WILL judge, we are not THE judge. That spot is reserved for God alone. He doesn’t need a “jury of our peers” to examine someone’s life. He sees our hearts. He knows our history, our background, our makeup. He understands our pasts, our pain and our wounds. He judges with His holy perfection and unfathomable love in complete balance. Not one of us can compete with that.
Even Jesus didn’t come to this world to judge it – John 3:17 – For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. He was God and yet He was also a “friend of sinners”. He kept company and reached out to those that the religious world had deemed as untouchable. When religious leaders around Him tried to the point the finger at the wrongs of others and judge, Jesus put them in their place by reminding them that they and their hearts were in the exact same spot as these “sinners”. And He offered love and forgiveness to all.
Many times our fear of judgment doesn’t have to do with sin, though. It’s a fear of being misunderstood and being judged on another person’s perspective. Again, only God truly knows our hearts and our souls. Jesus was well acquainted with being incorrectly judged and misunderstood. John 1:11 – He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. Though He came as the perfection of God Himself, people still found a way to judge Him (shudder at the thought) and falsely accuse Him of being something that He wasn’t.
I can’t live my life as if I’m living in front of a jury, trying to please those who may judge. I have an audience of One. One Judge. A loving and compassionate and perfectly holy Judge who knows me at my core and will never, ever misunderstand me. Because of my relationship with Him, my sentence has gone from death to LIFE. And may that knowledge help me live in utter gratefulness every single day…
John 10:10 – I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
Hebrews 12:28 – Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.
