The auditor just left - and our administrative team is high-fivin'. Partly because we again had the kind of clean audit our ministry's been blessed with year after year, and partly just because it's over! They worked hard to be ready for all the things the auditor wanted to check out.
In the business world - and sometimes even in the Christian world - audits aren't always happy. Auditors can find things that get you in trouble with your boss, with the government - even with the law. Audits uncover hidden secrets.
I've got a meeting scheduled with the auditor in the future. Except, I don't know when it is, because the appointment is with the Auditor, and only He knows when my audit of a lifetime is going to be. Fact is, we're all facing the audit of our lives. The Bible says that "each of us will give an account of himself to God" (Romans 14:12).
There will be no exceptions - "each of us." There will be no excuses - "will give account of himself to God." No blaming your spouse or your parents, your kids or friends or coworkers. I will answer for me and me alone. Also, there will be no secrets. "God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ" (Romans 2:16). The Auditor knows every website we've ever visited, every e-mail or conversation we've been involved with, every sin we thought we got away with.
Many times I've seen a road sign with these stark words: "Prepare to meet your God" (Amos 4:12). Since heaven's all-knowing Auditor will expose everything about my life, it makes sense to work on what I'll face in His presence. The Auditor has let us know what He'll be auditing. I'd like to know that now.
I know He'll be auditing the words I speak. Jesus said so: "Men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless (or worthless) word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted and by your words you will be condemned" (Matthew 12:36-37). All our words - including the gossip, the angry stuff, the putdowns, the dirty stuff - will be there to meet us on the day of judgment. There will be no denying my own words.
The Auditor's also going to examine why I do what I do. "Wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts" (1 Corinthians 4:5). I'm not too excited about those new full body scans they're installing at airports. They reveal what no one else can see. But that's nothing compared to God's full heart scan at the judgment seat. No matter how good what I've done may be, it will burn if my real motive was me, not Him. God cares much more about why we do than what we do. If it wasn't for His glory, if it wasn't because of pure love, it will never survive the audit.
Then Jesus said, "Give an account of your management" (Luke 16:2). The audit is going to be about what I've done with what He's given to me - my money, my influence, my home, my abilities, my opportunities. I'm suspecting that a lot of us are going to be feeling the shame and sadness of what might have been, of how much we could have done, and should have done.
And then there's this really sobering warning of what's going to come up at the audit. "When I say to a wicked man (the Bible makes it clear that's all of us), ‘You will surely die,' and you do not...speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood" (Ezekiel 3:18). Ouch! God will confront me with all the people I didn't tell about Jesus, whose eternity depended on hearing about Him.
I guess the hardest-hitting exposure at the audit of a lifetime will be about what we do with Jesus. The Biblical vision of Judgment Day reveals that "the books were opened. Another book was opened which is the book of life...If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:12, 15). What an unspeakably horrific moment. Jesus checks the book of life to see if a person's name is there. If it's not, it's too late.
But, it's not too late now. "Now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6:2). There's only one way to have your name in that book. "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life" (John 3:36). Jesus is the deciding factor because only Jesus paid the price for our sins to be erased from God's book when He died on the cross. When we pin all our hopes on Him, and Him alone, we "cross over from death to life" (John 5:24). It's possible to know about Jesus your whole life and miss giving yourself to Him - and miss heaven.
The Auditor's told us how to take the dread out of the audit. "If we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment" (1 Corinthians 11:31). Face it now so you don't have to face it then. Deal with it now so He doesn't have to deal with it later. It's no wonder He's so deeply interested in how we live our life. He's very heavily invested - with His blood.