"You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one." John 8:15
I have no clue who will be in heaven. I have no clue who will not be in heaven. In fact I can not say without a doubt that I will be in heaven. I also can not say without a doubt that everyone won't be in heaven. Heaven may be overflowing, or it may be sparse, I do not know. Perhaps only Christians will be in heaven, perhaps only Lutherans, perhaps people from all religions, perhaps agnostics, perhaps atheists, perhaps there isn't a heaven.
I say all of that to say that I do not decide who gets in and who does not, hence I try not to claim that I do. There are people who do claim to know who gets in and who doesn't, interestingly enough heaven is usually populated with people very much like the person claiming to know who gets in and the people who are not like them do not get in.
I also try not to claim that I know who does and does not follow Jesus. I have my own preconceived notions about what it means to follow Jesus, but I also know how messed up I am in so many areas, so I do not say that person A who does X can not follow Jesus.
I had a conversation with a friend the other day about how people who think like us can keep from being as stringent and unyielding as people who think differently than us. We didn't come to an adequate conclusion, but upon further reflection I wonder if it starts by not thinking them as being stringent and unyielding. After all, we are both wanting the same things, right? We are both working toward our understanding of what a better world looks like, we agree on a great many things, but it is where we disagree that drives such a divisive wedge between us. Perhaps we need but focus on our similarities as opposed to our differences to keep from being stringent and unyielding, on both sides.
All of this falls squarely in the category of judgment. In the above passage Jesus says that he judges no one, even though he could if he wanted to, because he would judge from the perspective of God instead of from the perspective of the flesh. In a way it is odd to think about it this way, because o often we tend to think that God judges people the same way that we do, here it appears that Jesus is saying that is not the case. I am not sure how God judges people, by what criteria, in what manner, but I do know that it is not with the eyes that I judge or with the heart that I judge or with the mind that I judge. It is my job to judge less and less until perhaps one day I judge no longer.
+ When thinking of God's judgement do you think it will look like yours?
+ How do you keep from judging? Do you believe you should not judge?
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