YOU WILL MEET GOD

There are appointments we can cancel, delay, forget, or avoid. One appointment belongs to every human life: we will all meet God!

We often live as though death dissolves accountability. A hidden act seems safe if no one discovers it. An injustice appears final if the offender dies powerful and unpunished. A faithful life can seem wasted if it ends without recognition.

But Scripture emphasizes that history will not end into oblivion. God has appointed a day when He will judge the world in righteousness through Jesus Christ, and He has given assurance of this by raising Him from the dead.

Judgment is not an embarrassing doctrine Christianity hides. A world without final judgment would be a world in which countless atrocities are never answered, secret cruelty remains permanently secret, and victims whose cases were ignored never hear a just verdict. Our longing for justice points beyond human courts, which are necessary but limited, to the Judge who knows the whole truth.

God's judgment will not be distorted by money, race, nationality, influence, publicity, legal skill, ignorance of evidence, or political pressure. He does not need witnesses to inform Him. He knows actions, words, opportunities, omissions, and motives. He will not mistake appearance for reality.

That is good news when we think of evil done to us. It is terrifying when we remember evil within us.

We prefer a final judgment for oppressors and a private exception for ourselves. Yet the standard of the Judge is not whether we avoided the sins we find most offensive in others. He requires truth in the inward being and love for God and neighbour. Every careless word and hidden thing belongs within His knowledge.

The Bible says all have sinned. This does not erase differences between crimes or make every earthly consequence identical. It means none of us can stand before God's holiness on the strength of our own record.

Then comes the astonishing centre of the Gospel: the appointed Judge is also the Saviour who came first to bear judgment.

Jesus lived the righteous life we owe. At the cross He willingly bore sins, not because justice was unnecessary, but because divine mercy provided a substitute. God raised Him from the dead and appointed Him Lord and Judge. The scars of the Judge reveal that He did not remain distant from the cost of saving His enemies.

Those who hear Christ's word and trust the One who sent Him cross from death to life. They are justified by grace and no longer face condemnation for their sins because Christ bore that condemnation. Christians will still give account for their lives; grace does not make faithfulness irrelevant. But their acceptance with God rests on Christ, not the quality of their performance.

Those who persistently refuse God's Son remain responsible for their sins. There is no second saviour hidden beyond Jesus and no moral achievement that can overturn the verdict of the holy God.

You may say, "I will think about God when I am older." But age is not promised, and a delayed response is itself a present response. Each time truth is resisted, the heart practises resistance.

You may fear judgment so deeply that you avoid the subject. Avoidance cannot change the appointment. It can keep you from the refuge.

The Gospel calls you to settle your case now (and not pretend judgement is unreal) by coming to Christ. The court offers mercy before the day of final verdict because the Judge Himself has paid the cost.

You will meet God. You can meet Him clinging to your record, or clothed in the righteousness of Christ. There is no more important preparation for death because there is no more important truth about life.

Do you desire judgment for the wrongs of others while assuming an exception for yourself?

What hidden part of your life would you least want brought into perfect light?

On what basis do you expect to stand before God?