What if you were grading papers...

Imagine, if you could, that you were responsible for instructing all the humans on this earth what it means to live a good life. Imagine God gaving you a red pen and a video of each person's life who lived on earth. Then he instructed you to grade them according to what they have done, both good and bad.

As you sit and watched each individuals choices, and the motive behind each thing they did, I am sure you would find some whose motives were good and the outcomes were bad. I also believe that you would find some whose motives were bad and for reasons unknown to any of us the outcomes are good.

Would you, as the proverbial saying goes, give those with good motives and bad outcomes in "E for effort? Or would you give them a good grade since they really tried for all the right reasons?

And you could quite possibly employ the old adage, "the ends don't justify the means", to satisfy your judgment upon those who had bad motives. You may care not that their final exam provided a good result, since they cheated on the test.

And for all I know you may totally disagree with my assumptions. You may think those who had good motives and yet bad outcomes were just naive to think that being good and having the right motives would always succeed.

You may think that those who were smart enough to achieve the results they were looking for, even if it were through the wrong means, as more business savvy and deserving of a good grade from you.

In each of these cases I believe that no matter how hard you tried, someone would most likely disagree with your conclusions. It would just be a matter of opinion or individual convictions.

That brings me to the question, a the end of your "grading session", do you believe God would agree with your assessments?

If those who were still alive came to you, what good deeds would you tell someone they could do, and at the end of their life, God will allow them entrance into heaven?

Compared to God's standard of perfection, how does your instructions of good behavior to this person stand up?

Given my people pleasing personality and my tendency to give grace, especially more now that I'm older, I think I would have a hard time turning away individuals who had tried their hardest. I would have a hard time letting them miss heaven. How about you?

Given the depth of my humanity, and knowing how often I can be judgmental, I believe I could be the one who could turn away those who had lived a bad life and not allow them into heaven.

And, I could see me, as I dealt with all those in between the good and the bad choices, wanting to make it all fair so that no one who at least tried to do good at least once or twice would miss heaven.

I also believe that I would have an even harder time letting someone whose life had been filled with illness, struggles, abuse and had endured great misfortune, miss heaven! Wouldn't it be reasonable to believe that they had lived there hell on earth?

You see, you may be like me, you may have a hard time setting a standard and holding to it if you could truly see what happens to people behind the scenes. What would be your thoughts if you could observe their everyday life and see just how hard they had it.

Thus grading on a curve, at least for me, and maybe for you, seems like a good idea in these cases. But would that be fair to those who had done more good than the "marginalized"?

It would seem fair to hold different people to different standard depending on their knowledge of right and wrong wouldn't it?

Andy disagrees....

He makes a great argument that causes my tendency to want things to be fair crumble. There is not any standards or grading scales in Scripture, either recorded from Jesus's words, or from any other New Testament writer, that would support this approach.

So, what do you think about the absolute standard that Jesus has set? That all men, no matter where they are born, how they are raised, what they are taught, or what ever exposure they have t0o religion, have to come to him for salvation. What do you think about Jesus's claim in John14:6 that "I am the way the truth and the life and no man comes to the father except through me."

As always, take a moment, and share your thoughts. I always enjoy reading your response to each blog post!

Have a great week!