Consider the source…

A family we know loves to tell stories that they make up. some see them as pranks and humor and laugh at some of the results. Others believe the stories and when they realize they were just stories, they see this family as a bunch of liars. Who is making the right judgment? 

Only God knows the heart and what motivates anything we do. I’m not good at figuring out my own heart so realize the importance of avoiding quick judgments. Yet even as I write this, I realize how easily mistakes can be made. Yesterday someone sent me a description of a person recently in the news. I don’t know that person nor have never heard him speak but I trusted the evaluation sent to me because I know and trust the sender. 

The description was of a powerful man of God. However, last night I read on social media the opposite opinion. According to that description of the same man, he was evil, a trouble-maker, and not anything like the first opinion. I prayed about this, not that it matters to me personally, but wondered how to think after reading both views. 

Charnock gave some light. He writes how those who reject God as Creator also reject Him as authority. If someone defames a Christian, it might be because they have believed in evolution and God (if He exists) has no right to tell them how to live.

Charnock adds that our Creator has a natural dominion over us as creatures before He has a dominion by consent over us as converts. We are like that too. When we create something, we have a right of possessing what we make. We can either cherish it or dash it in pieces, add to it or deface it. This means the first cause of everything has dominion. Those who agree with God, worship Him for this. Those who don’t will resent and even hate it and those who proclaims it. These verses come to mind:

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. (Psalm 95:3–5)
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man... (Acts 17:24)
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools... (Romans 1:18–22)

God surprised me in my daily reading through the Bible by the passage that was next. He says this about the huge rift between believers and those who do not:

The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from calamity; he enters into peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness. But you, draw near, sons of the sorceress, offspring of the adulterer and the loose woman. Whom are you mocking? Against whom do you open your mouth wide and stick out your tongue? Are you not children of transgression, the offspring of deceit, (Isaiah 57:1–4)

He later reminds people how He has held His peace for a long time, yet they do not fear Him, but go on in their own way. Yet He tells all that there is another way: “The Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear.” Deadness happens because “iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. For your hands are defiled. . . .  your lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness. No one enters suit justly; no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity. . . . The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked; no one who treads on them knows peace.” (Isaiah 59:1-4; 8)

PRAY: Oh Lord, those who hate You will protest and persecute those who love You and whoever convicts them of sin. Yet those who stand up for You can offend others, by shouting “Turn or burn” rather than “Jesus loves You and died for You” — both are true, yet speaking the truth in love is a NT command, even though gentle words can be rejected just as strong warnings can be rejected. You are Lord. May Your truth prevail. Amen.