Grieving and Judging Others

Grieving

I was talking to a friend of mine who lost his father this past weekend. You could hear the emotion in his  voice as he talked about their relationship. But, it was good to talk to him and deepen our friendship while trying to give him some comfort. There is no right or wrong way to grieve when you lose a loved one, especially a parent. During the conversation, I was able to tell him something that not too many people know about me. It has been over six years since my mother passed away. Yet, to this day, I have never really had that time of deep remorse or sorrow where I felt empty inside or at a loss to explain what happened. I have never questioned the Lord over why she died or the way that she died. Don’t get me wrong, I miss my mom and things like how she would always call me, “baby son.” Time will only tell how I will react to any similar events in the future. However, I believe my experience is directly related to my faith in Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul said, “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14).” 

Paul encouraged his Christian audience that when other Christians die we can look to the example of Jesus to give us hope that they we will be reunited with them when He returns. I take this one step further. Knowing what I know about Jesus Christ and my relationship with Him, that because of my faith in Him I am at peace with God and will be with Him forever, gives me a level of comfort that the end of our physical lives is not the end. If those who die are in Christ, we know that we will see them again. If they are not in Christ, we know that God is just and that they have been given an opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as their savior. This truth separates us from those who have not accepted Jesus as their savior. For them, physical death is the end because they do not know the hope offered through faith in Jesus Christ. This gives us who know the Lord an opportunity to “comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God (2 Corinthians 1:4).” The ultimate hope of all this is that people come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ so that when their circumstances seem more than they can bare, they can live above their circumstances because of their faith in and knowledge of Jesus Christ. 

Judging a book by its cover

It has been said that when a person quits smoking they learn to despise the smell of cigarettes. In a similar way, when an individual accepts Jesus Christ as their savior the “smell” of their former way of living becomes something you begin to despise. However, what you must guard against is judging others as if the behavior they are engaged in, that you have put behind you, is proof that the Lord is not working on them. Granted it may be evidence they do not know the Lord, but I know from experience it isn’t hard evidence that they do not. For example, I was saved in 1996. At the time I used to drink heavily in social situations. Often times my behavior while saved was not much different than it was before I knew the Lord. Besides the drinking, there was the foolish behavior that always accompanied it. If anybody was observing me, the last thing they would have said was, “There goes a Christian man.” If anything, they would have said, “He needs Jesus!” But, nobody knew the struggle going on inside me. I knew that what I was doing wasn’t right and I wanted to stop the behavior. I just didn’t know how to stop.

Nobody knew the countless times I would come home late at night, drunk and disgusted with myself, and cry myself to sleep in frustration with my inability to stop and the fear that God would punish me in some way. But, I was a 100% saved, born again, child of God with the Holy Spirit indwelling me. That struggle inside of me was the Holy Spirit battling against my flesh. “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please (Galatians 5:17).” Just as my flesh and Spirit battle within me, I cannot say that this same battle isn’t going on within somebody I witness doing those things I don’t do any longer. It took three years before I finally found “victory” over drinking. However, I am fully aware of the fact that I can fall into that same lifestyle once again. My point is that the person you see trapped in sin may be at a stage in their life that you were once in. And the Bible reminds Christians, “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:11).” Let us keep telling others about the Lord and letting Him live through us so as to help those struggling with the world.