Friends: Want to find meaning in this world? Better look to the life beyond. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #1004

February 4, 2026

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Looking Beyond

By Bob Walters

“God will bring to judgment both the righteous and the wicked.” – Ecclesiastes 3:17

Now there’s a cheerful thought: we will all get what’s coming to us.

As Christians, we know the righteousness of Jesus covers what we accept to be our fallen wickedness. If any person is interested in heaven, or in a loving God, restored eternal relationship with that God, or is seeking divine purpose and ultimate meaning in this present realm, then faith in Jesus is the only way, truth, and life to attain them.

Our job at hand isn’t to defeat our wickedness; we can’t, although it doesn’t hurt to try. Our goal, our faith, is to accept the love and truth of God. Then, to love others.

On the other hand, if a person in this life has no interest or belief in those divine things, or perhaps is openly contemptuous of, hostile to, or cynical about them, it makes no logical sense in this life to worry about spending eternity with someone, i.e. Jesus, in someplace, i.e., heaven, they already reject. Are you going to like Jesus better later?

We all, as Christians, pray for those folks.  We call them the lost.

This is the lesson in Luke 16:19-31 of poor, sick Lazarus in heaven and the rich man viewing him from hell. The rich man awoke too late to the truth of his sin, and once he departed this life, there was nothing he could do to save his sons from the same fate.

Every time I settle into my gratitude for the sacrifice of Jesus and his gift of freedom from sin’s eternal consequence, I am unsettled knowing many are still shackled to their sin.  It is not only their forever fate I grieve but their absence of light in this life, seeing the things of God as meaningless, and the things of this world as supreme.

I don’t want people first to fear judgment; I want them first to feel God’s love.

It is a tough nut to crack.  Ecclesiastes famously declares all things of this life as “meaningless.” Yet, why would a loving, creative, rational, and relational God create a world and its inhabitants for no discoverable purpose? It wouldn’t be logical or rational.

Then look again at Ecclesiastes 3:17, about God’s judgment of our righteousness and wickedness. None of us likes judgment, we all think our opinions are righteous, and many folks seriously wonder if their wickedness (if wickedness is real) truly matters.

We know Christians who are awful, and we know “lost” folks we would trust with our lives. So how do we put this together: that this life means something glorious, God’s love is as immutable as it is righteous, and faith in Jesus is the only key that unlocks heaven’s door? And, why would we want that? Don’t we just want to be happy now?

As widely as I do not understand either end of the Bible – creation or restoration – what I have learned is that God does only what is just and true and righteous. That I do not understand all of it is of no consequence. What is of consequence is whether I trust Jesus’s promise and believe God’s love. The Seeker in Ecclesiastes is looking for meaning on this earth. He learns the only way to find it is to look beyond, to God.

My mentor George Bebawi often made the very helpful point not to look at judgment and mercy as opposites; they work together. The greatest secular problem of this age, culturally, politically, and philosophically, is that we are quick to levy judgments on others without considering the joy and righteousness – and peace – of mercy.

God’s judgment on us all is guaranteed, and God’s righteousness is eternal. His mercy toward humanity is the component of judgment that Jesus delivered on the cross.

Mercy doesn’t erase wickedness; only Jesus could do that. Our lives in this realm are blessed, though, when we look with mercy and faith beyond the ugliness of sin.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows that God put a longing in our hearts…for God.