Kingdom Building

November 13, 2019

Scripture Reading: Psalm 98

Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
   the world and those who live in it.
Let the floods clap their hands;
   let the hills sing together for joy
at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming
   to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
   and the peoples with equity. –Psalm 98:7-9

I do not know if most followers of Christ think of judgment as being out of sight out of mind or think of it as an archaic understanding of scripture or do not think of it at all. Certainly, we have moved beyond the hell fire and brimstone of former years at least in some churches. The Hebrew word translated judge above speaks to a final judgment when we each stand before God facing a review of our lives.

I personally think that we need to do such reckoning as we go. I supervised a lot of people in my career and always tried to have a final review when an employee retired or quit for whatever reason. These were often emotional meetings with some tears and some laughter as we remembered the successes and failures and fellowship that come with any job. There rarely were surprises in such interviews because we had faced the bad times and the good times together.

My goal is to have that kind of interview with God someday because I try to keep in touch with God everyday through self-evaluation and prayers for guidance, trying to reconcile the wrong turns I have made as I strive toward the goal Paul talks about here in Philippians:

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.  Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:10-14)

Prayer: Walk with us Lord as we strive toward meeting the goals you have set before us. Help us see the better ways we may be missing. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.