My church has this belief. One of the biggest purposes in life is to learn how we react to a plethora of different situations. In other words, we're being tested. In the last days, God will judge how we did in life, and we will receive a reward accordingly.
The Bible teaches that in heaven there are many mansions (John 14:2), which means the rewards are variable. If we are valiant and faithful in this life, the rewards can be many. If we are lazy or just all around terrible people, then the rewards can be fewer. It's not so much a binary heaven/hell thing, but something more like a continuum of different levels of reward, so that in the end, we can receive perfect rewards that fit how well we do.
And the thing is -- it is ultimately God's job to judge. It is very easy for all of us to misjudge others, especially when we do not know all the details. There could very well be a person who I see as "terrible" and "unrighteous," who in the eyes of God is worth the highest rewards. Then perhaps if I knew a little more about that person, I would understand why that person is different than he seems.
I know that I've struggled these past couple of years as the human race has been dealing ineffectively with the coronavirus epidemic. Even though we have years of experience in fighting these situations, we also got hit by a lot of misinformation that confused a lot of people -- causing many to throw out the standard pandemic rule book. Thus, many behaved in ways that actually helped to drastically increase death and pain.
So, I'm quick to judge particularly those who intentionally propagated misinformation, as I know their actions did increase death and pain. But then when I dig in, I find out that many of them feel that they're following their own well-meaning missions -- to protect freedoms and to call for sanity. Even if it did lead to more death, is God going to count these actions against them when they, to their own knowledge, felt that they were only doing what they thought was right?
And what if I helped to increase death by pushing people away from doing what minimized death? What if I helped some people not to put on masks or not get vaccinated? Could these actions of mine count against me?
Only God knows our hearts. And only he can judge. The best we can do is to continue to love each other no matter what.
The only thing I know for certain these days is that we're being tested. COVID19 is a test. Our entire toxic political environment is a test. These droughts and floods are tests. They are all opportunities for us to show the best of ourselves, or to fail miserably.
However, there is one person on Earth who may be most qualified to judge you, second to God. And that would be you, yourself. Nobody knows the full ins and outs of what we believe than ourselves. It may be a biased view most of the time, but if we dig into our hearts and get past all the bias, we all really know deep down how well we're doing. Or at least we can always perform a self-assessment.
We can always ask: "How did I do during the pandemic? How am I treating my political opponents? How am I loving my neighbor? Am I helping or hurting?" Chances are very good that God will judge consistently with how we honestly view ourselves deep down in our hearts.
So -- if you're worried about how well you're doing, just remember -- we can always do a self-assessment and then you can always get a good sense of what to work on next. We can pass the next tests that come along our paths.
