1 Thessalonians 1:4-10 Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring. All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
We know God is just and He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. We know the ungodly will be banished someday into outer darkness with the concomitant suffering of everlasting fire. This horrific judgment indicates God does not tolerate sin's open rebellion to his eternal rightness. Sin is a virulent cancer that contaminates everything, bringing conflict, envy, selfishness and even violence into relationships. We know the first act of sin outside the Garden was murder caused by envy: Cain slew his brother. Cain decided he could do what was right in his own eyes. When Adam and Eve partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they slipped into rebellion against God. From that time until now, sin has reigned in the hearts of mankind: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way. (Isaiah 53:6) This self-directed, self-willed life makes men and women enemies of God and all that is good and holy. Divisiveness, rebellion, and discord are characteristic of the evil one, not of God. God is love. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8) God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5) Obviously, those who reject the love and light of God represented in his Son, Jesus Christ, by choosing to live an implacable sinful life will eventually face the full wrath of God. When we turn from God's salvation plan and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus, there is no other way to the Father, no other way to eternal life. When Peter and John were questioned for healing a lame man, Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel: If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This is the “stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:8-12)
Paul consistently tried to raise the level of the spirituality of the people he addressed in his letters. He used strong words with the Corinthians: Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly — mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? (1 Corinthians 3:1-3) Paul is not equating the recalcitrant Corinthian Christians as Godless heathens, under certain judgment of the Lord, but He is implicitly saying their lives should be lived in obedience to the Lord Jesus and the example He gave. The lives of all believers in and out of church should be lived under Christ's authority and according to the Word of God. Paul indicates in the above scriptures that judgment will fall on all those who do not know God. In writing to the Corinthians, we see Paul wrestling with the problem of overt sin in the church. He knows the behavior of those who are away from God is contrary to the will of God. Rather than seeking harmony and peace, they are intent upon going their own way. As with the world, they are not coming under the authority of Jesus Christ. They are not harvesting the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Rather, they are quarreling, fighting, backbiting. The sin of the world, the unregenerate nature of man, has crept back into the Corinthian church. God is a just God: He will judge the sins of the world. Paul knew, despite the wonderful grace of the Lord, if the church in Corinth was an unrepentant church at the coming of the Lord it would be judged. Servants of the Lord must yield to him in all things, saying, "Not my will but your will, oh Lord; your authority, not mine. Take my life and make it yours." The Bible gives us the perfect way: Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)
Yes, God is just; He sees the works of our flesh. Every time we yell at our spouse or children in uncontrolled anger, we frustrate the grace of God. Paul described the battle between the flesh and the spirit, saying that what he wanted to do, he failed to do, and what he did not want to do was what he did. He concluded: So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:21-25) Jesus is our Redeemer! He died for our shortcomings, our sins. But Paul reminds us not to let our freedom in Christ be a license for sin. Since GOD IS JUST, He will repay ANYONE for hurting one of his children. He will not allow a Christian husband to abuse his wife without assigning consequences to such actions. He will not allow a willful temper to go unjudged. We cannot just "swim in grace" and think we will get away with every willful act. GOD IS NOT ONLY JUST; ABOVE THAT, HE LOVES HIS CHILDREN. We who are in Christ will suffer in this world for sure at the hands of unbelievers, but we should not be suffering at the hands of those who love God and claim the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. If we hurt others in the body of Christ, we need to come to the cross in true repentance, asking God to help us love others as we love ourselves. We know God is a good father who answers our prayers. As a true daughter or son of the MOST HIGH, we want to please him, for He has been so good to each of us. He has forgiven us much; therefore, we should forgive others as well.
For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
(1 Peter 4:17) We must walk in love because God is love. We must remember our inheritance and who we are: children of the light. Remember the Word: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. (John 3:16-19) May our deeds be glorious! 
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