Father or Judge

I was struck while bringing my sermon to a conclusion this past Sunday morning by the concept of meeting God as your Father or as your Judge on the final day.
What struck me was linking it with my ongoing prayers about my little boy Malachi.
Something I often pray is that our relationship will always be one if intimacy and Father-Sonship. Let me explain.

What I do not want to happen is my son starting to live in a way that I cannot, as a follower of Jesus, support or champion. This does not mean I stop loving him at all, but it will mean that our relationship will know a different context. He will know me as someone who is not only his father but as someone that has a desire for a level of morality within him that is not being fulfilled and he may be destroying his (and others) life.

I long that in many years time when he is out of the house far more than he is in it, he will return to the door every time aware of our impending embrace and reunion. I do not want it to be very different where he actually returns to the door carrying the consciousness that I can neither condone or embrace his activity as a man. I hope you get my point.

Now I consider this scenario magnified to an infinite degree when each of us meets the Father. How will I meet Him? How will you meet Him? What will be the overwhelmingly all-encompassing consciousness within your heart? Will He be Father or Judge?

Simon