“Remember, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For the Scriptures say, ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bend to Me, and every tongue confess and give praise to God.’ Yes, each of us will give a personal account to God.” (Romans 10b-12 NLT)
The Lord in His mercy has given us many choices when it comes to how we will respond to the sacrifice He made to make Himself known to us. We can deny Him by pretending He doesn’t exist; believing He exists but ignoring Him, believing He has no real value or meaning to our life; or we can bow in His holy presence acknowledging who He is and pledge our allegiance to Him for all eternity.
The reality is, every person who has lived, is living, or ever will live WILL bow in humble acknowledgment that Jesus is who He always claimed to be: Creator, Sustainer, and Ruler of all that exists or ever will exist! And here’s the kicker: It will be completely voluntary! The Lord won’t force or coerce anyone to bow before Him. At the final judgment we will all see as we’ve been seen whether or not we’re born again. It will be crystal clear to every human being exactly why they are receiving the judgment the Lord is declaring over their life and, ironically, they’ll be in full agreement with His judgment.
For those who are lost, there will be no rebuttal, no argument, no declaration of innocence, no futile attempts to defend another position or opinion. EVERYONE will fully understand that they stand before a holy God who knows all, has seen all, and understands everything, even the real reasons they rejected Him. And do you know what will be the most heartbreaking part of judgment to lost people?
They will finally understand that the Lord isn’t angry with them, in fact, He loves them and is grieved that they will spend an eternity away from Him. He hasn’t been out to “get” them, He’s been making overtures of love to save them. Their torment won’t be the “flames of hell,” it will be finally and forever seeing clearly how much the Lord loved them, pleaded with them to follow Him, yet they spit in His holy face and walked away jeering and laughing in unbelief. And I can almost hear someone thinking: “I’ve never spit in Jesus’ face!” Yes, you did, every time you ignored His invitation to follow Him!
Every lost person will see how much they missed by denying or ignoring Him; how much they could have had, had they simply opened their heart to Him and received by faith His completed work on Calvary on their behalf. Their stubborn unbelief that denied His existence or denied their need to respond to Him in a timely manner (i.e. the five Bridesmaids who didn’t have enough oil, who weren’t prepared).
Are YOU prepared? Or are you still stubbornly ignoring Him, denying He exists or postponing the inevitable? You do know even the demons acknowledge the Lord’s deity and tremble in His presence (James 2:19), because they already know what their future holds. And, like Satan, they are doing all they possibly can to take as many people to hell with them as they can.
It saddens me that so many professing believers are ignoring their responsibility to help as many people in their spheres of influence as possible to find and grow in the Lord. We have no clue when our next breath will be; how can we be so arrogant to believe we’ll have another opportunity to share with our lost family and friends?
If you’re reading this and you don’t have certainty that when you close your eyes in death you will open them in the Lord’s presence, please click on ANewStory.com so you can know for sure how you can be in heaven when you die.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 