The Ability To Love And The Ability To Judge

When I think about God, I understand that he has the power to do anything. He is, after all, God. Although God can’t be limited to only two aspects, I believe these two aspects encompass everything else in one way or another. And so, I would say that there are, in my mind, two major aspects to God’s ability. One is that God has the ability to love, and the other is that he has the ability to judge.

Now, we have been made in his image, and that means that we naturally gravitate to God’s nature and want to live and act in accordance with that nature. But what part of God’s nature should we aspire to: To love or to judge?

I think it’s possibly for this very reason that God allows us to have all the weaknesses that we have, even after we have been made one with him in our new creation selves. When we think about it, it’s easy to realise that we show ourselves weak on a daily basis. We make promises to God and others that we break. We lie, even if they are little white ones, such as assuring people that we’ll pray for their needs but don’t, or using the company time to surf the Internet or make private phone calls. We walk by people in need without helping them, whether they are strangers or even friends. I’m not saying everyone does these things; we all have different abilities and some of us are more disciplined than others; but regardless, everyone could write a list of their own, and the list could just go on and on.

The bottom line is, we are simply weak individuals in these jars of clay.  We all have personality flaws, we all have weakness, we all fall short of our own expectations as well as the expectations of others. But here’s the thing; even in all these weaknesses, when others normally exercise judgement over us for our actions and motives, God doesn’t. It is in these very moments of our own weakness, when God could, in his perfect nature, exercise his ability to judge us,  he doesn’t; instead he chooses to love us.

God chooses not to judge, although he could; instead, he chooses to cover over our weakness with his strength. He chooses to comfort us and assure us that he’s not focused on our weaknesses; rather, he’s focused on our hearts. He chooses to see the child who longs to be like him living on the inside of us, not the weak jar of clay failing on the outside.

God can judge, it’s part of his perfect nature to have that ability, but he reveals to us how he chooses not to; instead, he lives out of the very core of who he is and he loves. Oh, and how he loves!

When we see this love, and allow ourselves to experience this love, despite our weaknesses, I believe it is then that we too choose to live in the same pattern as God himself. We don’t judge, even if we may be justified to do so; instead, we love. We cover over people’s personality flaws and weaknesses. We see the child within who longs to be strong and loving, we assure people of our acceptance of them. We love, because we have seen that God first loved us in this way.

I’ve seen God’s love; it’s incredible, and it inspires me to live a life that loves too.

Love: It’s God’s desired way of living.