God has never told me to love the world, quite the opposite (see 1 John 2.15-17). This doesn’t surprise me as often the hidden rules of society attempt to suppress anything to do with God. To hate people of the world is not something God has told me, quite the opposite, and it’s important to make that distinction.
So when God asks me not to love the world, I say no worries! I hate how the world tries to suppress people’s hope and sense of what God is putting on offer. In response to my annoyance with the world I’m doing a list of ‘awkward words’ that it has come up with to spite God. The meaning of these words have been perverted by the world and so it creates a feeling of awkwardness when these words are mentioned in public. But for those who understand how God means these words, it is not awkwardness, it is conviction. I think conviction is an awesome thing because it leads one closer to God and his ways, rather than trying to defeat the world and its ally of death on one’s own terms.
I think it’s valuable to make a distinction between how the world views things and how God views things. Dispelling myths about how God sees things can only lead one closer to God.
The first awkward word is “judgement” and will be discussed throughout the rest of this article. Following articles will elaborate on the meaning of other key words distorted by the world.
“Judgement” as awkwardness
Something to do with narrow minded people who cast their own beliefs on to others and think they are right and I am wrong. They think they’re better then everyone else. Judgement is unnecessary and only makes people feel bad. I hate judgemental people, they try to control you and I avoid them.
“Judgement” as conviction
New-age positivists have become the new fashion of today. Their philosophy is that of do-it-yourself mix of beliefs and practices. They say everything is equal and so we shouldn’t criticise other people’s beliefs or practices. So whenever one criticises their religion they are offended that we dare not abide by their philosophy of non-criticism. This leads me to conclude that they don’t really think all beliefs are equal. New-age doesn’t believe that healthy criticism is of equal value, which shows that their religion is a contradiction on their own part. They say they love all, but in actual fact, love only those who participate in their own beliefs and practices. New-age is passive-aggressive and is a superficial lie. It pretends to love all and spreads its wings by saying so, but in truth is spreading its wings by deception.
The point of bringing up new-age is that it’s not so positive, and for new-age to put its hand up against criticism is harmful. Whether or not we officially follow new-age, I think secular culture has taken parts of it. Secular culture is free to criticise those who don’t abide by their religion, but it is very offended when one dares to say secular culture has a problem and is in for trouble. Punishment for criticising secular includes shame and outcasting to say the least. Both new-age and secular inflict judgement in an erroneous manner and are quite obviously confused, they are key leaders of the awkward idea of judgement.
If a guy is believing in a practice that is harmful, what do we do? Those who have no heart will perceive judgement in one of two ways. The first way is to hate him and condemn him because of the practice, the second way is to leave him to keep harming himself because we wouldn’t want to judge and we don’t have the heart to discern. Those who have heart will correct the guy harming himself, saying it’s wrong and why, and will help him on to a more helpful path that doesn’t involve harm. We all make assessments of people and Jesus validates and calls on us to assess (see Luke 6.43-45), it’s how we follow through in practical ways that makes the difference – love or hate, discern or judge.
In a sense both judgement and discernment are the same because they both involve an assessment. But then both judgement and discernment are very different in how they are expressed practically. The awkward idea of judgement forgets to make a distinction between judgement and discernment. The world thinks that to make assessments of other peoples’ principles and behaviours is often uncalled for, and the world falsely accuses some people of assessing with hate when in fact they are assessing with love. The world thinks discernment is judgement when in fact it is quite the opposite. It’s always got to do with the heart. Judgement is with no heart, and discernment is with heart.
In the Bible discernment is associated with following through on an assessment with love at heart (see Philippians 1.9-11). In the Bible judgement can be associated with following through with hate and contempt at heart (see James 2.3-4). However judgement is not always associated with following through with hate and contempt at heart. For instance judgement is associated with God as Righteous Judge of the world where justice will be brought to fullness on the day of judgement so that we can live in 100% love for all time to come (see Acts 17.31). Also, Jesus commends Simon on a correct judgement where no hateful follow through was evident in Luke 7.40-43. So understanding judgement is knowing it has varying meanings and these meanings are set by context. The good kind of judgement for man is often referred to as discernment. When I talk about judgement as an erroneous feature of life, it is in context of who is doing the judgement (man with unloving heart) and its follow through (unloving practice).
In Luke 7.37-50, Jesus welcomes a woman into Simon’s house and it turns out that Jesus and Simon differ in how they relate to the woman. Simon sees her as a sinner, questions why Jesus would let her in and desires to shun contact with her in an unloving manner. Simon was being judgemental and hypocritical because he also was a sinner. If one has sinned little and does not repent of his little sins because he thinks he is worthy in his own sight, he is worse off than a man who has done many sins and sincerely repents to God. Simon was not looking at the woman’s desire for forgiveness by Christ, he was looking at her many sins. How true of the world, that we may think that we’re not perfect, but still ‘good’ people and so don’t really need to make an effort to repent to God, our ‘goodness’ will suffice we think. This is not true, God will not accept our ‘goodness’ or few sins as entry to his heavenly realm, he will be looking at our heart and desire for repentance and forgiveness.
Going back to Luke 7.37-50, Christ acknowledged that the woman had committed sins, but his follow through was different to Simon. Christ instead did not seek to shun the woman, he showed her love by welcoming her and met her deepest need, that of forgiveness and salvation. Simon demonstrated hate through judgement and Christ demonstrated love through discernment.
One only has to look at secular media to see they have hate in mind when they judge. The media does not seek to correct and uplift, the media seeks to judge and put down. The media spends its time witch-hunting and shaming even those who would repent of their mistakes to God. The media is like what Simon did to the woman in Luke 7.37-50. Shaming and outcasting people who have made mistakes will not fix anything, because we’ll still be left with people prone to making mistakes, we all make mistakes. God is inclusive of all people who make mistakes and who sincerely repent of their mistakes to him through prayer.
God’s commands guide us to live a life in peace, joy and happiness with God and each other. He also gave us the Ten Commandments to show us that not just some of us, but all of us, live a life that is vulnerable to causing harm to ourselves and each other. It is out of love that a friend has the guts to possibly offend and correct another in harm’s way. But only so that in the end they are benefited and live more than they did before. 2 Timothy 4.2 tells us to be prepared to correct and encourage one another with patience and careful instruction. Correction by the word of God is true encouragement. Sugar coating by the word of man is true deception.
It isn’t about casting one’s belief on another, it’s about reminding each other of God’s commands, commands that he gave us to live life to the fullest while sin remains. Whoever thinks it’s fine to leave a friend alone as they self inflict harm and harm others is sick, this isn’t love. To watch out for a friend is to remind them when appropriate and keep loving them, knowing that we all are prone to show our imperfection.
To say that judgement originates from narrow mindedness is to not understand the difference between love and hate, because it is to ignore helpful discernment. It is also narrow minded to say another is narrow minded, because if we were open minded anything would go, or is it just anything by the accuser is right? Ultimately it’s a stalemate.
We can only discern by the word of God, he is the only perfect righteous one who can put forward helpful guidelines and that are actually helpful in the long run. We are all bad people, we are all wrong, God is right. I can break the rules for a few decades at best, but sooner or later death will catch up with me and the so-called godlikeness of my own rules with catch up with me, and be shown to be utterly useless because they do nothing to help me in the next life, in fact they destroy me, they were never helpful and never right.
I wouldn’t want another person’s rules to run my life because I know they aren’t perfect and I’ll end up confused, torn and broken. But you know, they don’t want my own made-up rules to control them either. We’re both screwed up. The only principles I can submit to originate from God, he alone provides a world where everything I do by him is good for me and ultimate in every awesome way. Because I submit to God I am therefore his slave. But to be honest I don’t feel like a slave, I feel redemption and freedom in everything I do. I agree with all of his ways and so I submit. I’d rather be a slave of God then a slave of men any day.
Relativism was out and about BC, and is out and about again now AD. This world and its societies don’t ‘evolve’ through the supposed latest belief system, it goes in circles and never finds peace. Its ever changing restless consistency always wants more because it never holds true hope.
