A few days ago someone was talking about how God is the judge in the courtroom of life, and we can try to put Him on trial as if we’re the judge, but we can’t do that because we’re not the judge. Then I started thinking about what it looks like when people try to represent themselves in court and when people try to claim they’re “sovereign citizens.” Those things never go well.
Now we say that of course those things are stupid, but we also need to realize that sometimes you and I try to act like this. We sometimes act like we can represent ourselves before God, as if we can justify our actions to someone who knows our motives and can see the evidence better than we can. But when it comes to salvation from sin and deliverance to eternal life, Jesus Christ is the only person who can represent us before God and get the judgement to go in our favor because of what He did to pay the huge sin debt we owe. We just need to realize and admit that we are in fact the ones responsible for our sin debt, and we need to claim by faith the mercy Jesus and God Himself both want us to have. We need to cooperate with the justice system and stop running away or trying to justify our actions, otherwise we’ll just prove that we have no repentance and that we see no need to receive mercy.
Now about “sovereign citizens.” If you’ve never heard of them, these are people who for whatever reason are convinced that the laws of our country don’t apply to them and that they are their own people that can do things based on different rules. But the laws of our country very much do apply to them and they can’t operate with a different set of them. They live here as citizens and are within our country’s jurisdiction. That doesn’t stop them from trying to say and act like they are under a different citizenship and jurisdiction, however, and it always looks and sounds incredibly stupid and ridiculous. But you and I do this with God. We can convince ourselves that we know better than God and we try to hold Him to our standards instead of realizing we’re the ones who are being held to His standards. We try to act like God can’t actually tell us what the real rules are, and we act like we don’t have to follow them because we have our own code we live by. Again, we’re not the judge, and we’re not above the law or adjacent to it. We are within God’s jurisdiction whether we like it or not. But we need not fear or chafe under this knowledge. God doesn’t want to clap us in eternal irons, so to speak. God wants us to have mercy, but He won’t make us take something we don’t want.
Related:
Justice and Mercy
Justice and Injustice
God Respecting Your Decision
God’s Mercy and Grace for Granted