The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. … Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the LORD; how much more the hearts of the children of man! -- Proverbs 15:3, 11
When I listen to people talk, I find that a lot of our
complaints and concerns seem to revolve around fairness and justice. Sometimes we worry that our efforts are
ignored and our motives misunderstood.
The other thing that bothers us is when people we think are probably
acting from wrong motives are not exposed and their deeds thwarted.
It also comes as a shock to us that instant karma doesn’t
always work in our favor. We do a favor
for someone, and they either forget about it or even turn against us. We do our best to be honest and fair, yet the
world takes advantage of us. After a few
rounds of getting stabbed in the back, that whole turning the other cheek thing
has a lot less appeal.
I think we ought to make a full disclosure when asking
people to follow Christ. Jesus did
it. He said the world has hated Me, and
it is going to hate you if you follow Me.
We need to tell our youth in the churches and new Christians not to
expect favorable treatment or even equity in their dealings with others just
because they are Christians. Don’t
expect it from the world, certainly, but don’t be surprised if those calling
themselves Christians turn on you when it is to their advantage. God is the only One you can trust absolutely.
Our fair treatment will come from God. He is the source of all justice, of all
goodness, of all retribution, recompense, and compensation. He will reward us not just for our successes
and accomplishments but for our efforts and our faithfulness and our obedience –
because He knows.
It was scary to me that God knew my thoughts – it’s probably
even scarier to God. All my evil
imaginings lie open before the eyes of the Lord. The Spirit of God knows the wickedness in the
depths of my heart. He knows the real
reasons – whether cowardice, lust, laziness, or vindictiveness – behind my façade
of pleasant words. Then one day I
realized that if He knows the bad side, He also knows the good side. He knows the times that I have set aside my
own preferences to help someone or given more than I could spare or pushed
myself past the limit, sacrificed for another.
He knows the times that I was terrified yet kept going. And, while, despite my best efforts, the bad
would outweigh the good, Jesus has His thumb on the scale. In the end, it is His righteousness that will
deliver me and not my own.
The beauty of it all is that we can be perfectly honest with
God. There are things about me that I
cannot tell to anyone, but God knows. My
sins are forgiven and forgotten, and the burden of all has been taken
away. Still there are things that have
happened that weren’t as much moral failures as they were just horribly
embarrassing. God knows about
those. He knows what I was thinking when
I did something stupid. He knows the
sickness and self-loathing I felt when I took the easy way out a few times, the
relief I felt when a potential challenge passed me by. All that stuff, no matter what it is or what
it was, we don’t have to pretend or forget to protect our “image”. With God there is nothing we can hide behind,
but there’s also nothing we need to hide.
