We have been talking about judgment and how we are often shamed for being judgmental. People say that we are in some way damning them.
Well, no. We are trying to correct each other. We are trying to live righteously. And we are failing. We live in a corrupt society, and we have to resist being dragged down into failure and damnation, as crabs in a pot pull those critters who are trying to escape certain death.
1If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross. 9Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
There are some things we have to kill in the church: we have to rediscover humility. We have to remember that we are not that gifted, that we instead are weak, easily manipulated: if this was not the case this advertisement would not work.
In this society, where you can use the actors who are continually case as psychopaths to sell things, it is indeed with fear and trepidation that we will work our our salvation. It is nothing to do with our self-esteem, or self-confidence, and more to do with a realization that we have to take even more care as we now live in a panopticon state run by people who selectively bring the full force of the law: the women who enjoy the sense of power when the US family courts literally imprison their husbands for child support should instead fear what the same courts can do to them.
You would be stupid not to be scared at this time. But this time will not last. For when Christ is revealed, all will be worshipping, for Christ will not need to boast, as any Guru does (including Oprah) of his qualities. They will be self-evident/
As will be our frailties and imperfections. Better to live today as for Christ.
