My Daily Pause

We don’t have to go far or ask very many people to find plenty of assorted ideas about how God’s judgment will work. So many who think they are in the right will find that they have fallen short of what God requires of us.

Even worse, the vast number of people misuse Matthew 7:1 to stop others from pointing out their sins, yet they do not check into exactly how they will be judged in the end. Paul helps us with this by first listing off a number of sins (Romans 1:28-32) and then giving us a list of ten points about God’s judgment. (Romans 2:1-16) If we believe that our God is a righteous God, then there are a number of expectations we need to live by. In order of how Paul listed them:

The Apostle Paul – Bartolomeo Montagna (1450–1523)

• We should practice what we preach or we condemn ourselves (Romans 2:1)
• We should expect to be judged by God’s word (Romans 2:2)
• We should not view God’s goodness to sinners to mean He isn’t going to punish their sins (Romans 2:4)
• We should expect to be judged for our works (Romans 2:6)
• We should expect to be punished for disobedience (Romans 2:8)
• We should expect to be held to a higher standard as we gain higher position and responsibility (Romans 2:9-10)
• We should not expect God to judge based on partiality (Romans 2:11)
• We should expect judgment based on the commandments God gave us (Romans 2:14-15)
• We should expect to be judged by New Testament standards (Romans 2:16)
• We should expect to be judged by Christ (Romans 2:16)

The only assumptions about how we face the judgment that can be made, are the ones listed in the God’s standard. The danger many face is applying another standard invented by men and expecting God to abide by that. We cannot set the standards for God!