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This is one of a number of articles addressing God's expectations of us for this new year. We have seen (117) that because His love, His justice, and His power are real, we will face Him some day.
We will face Him on the basis of His power (He's big enough to make sure we show up), and we will face Him in the light of His love and justice. His love was demonstrated in that He sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world to provide a satisfactory sacrifice for the sins of the children of men. This sacrifice was sufficient to balance the books of justice for every man, woman, and child who has ever been conceived as the offspring of Adam. His love was further demonstrated in that, once the sacrifice was made, He offered the results to everyone on the planet--meaning He made the total forgiveness of all sin available to anyone who wants it on His terms. His love was further demonstrated in that His terms were not performance-demanding. This means that He did not make the forgiveness of sin rest upon whether or not we did certain right things, or refrained from certain wrong things. He made the offer of eternal life through the forgiveness of our sins on the basis of repentance and faith. This means that if we want to be forgiven and receive eternal life on God's terms, we will be able to if we honestly seek His forgiveness and believe that He gives it freely--because He loves us. This is what it means to face God on the basis of His power in the light of His love. The critical issue is a real faith (not wishful thinking, or simply hopeful wishfulness) in the real offer of God to forgive and impart eternal life as a gift, based upon His grace and not our performance.
However, Jesus Himself declared that the vast majority of people would reject God's love-terms for eternal salvation. For these (are you among them?), there is a date with the power and justice of God. The justice of God is eternal. This means that we never face the full consequences of our sins in time. Mean and impenitent people often live longer, healthier, and wealthier than penitent ones. They often get their way and seem to get away with all manner of evil (from telling little white lies, cheating on their taxes, and other minor things to rape, murder, and all manner of heinous crimes). But, the appearance is deceiving because the day of God's appointed judgment is real, but invisible to our eyes at this point.
What does it mean to face the justice of God? It means to have every single wrong thought, wrong word, wrong motive, and wrong action tallied up on a tally sheet that imposes a certain and eternal penalty to be imposed upon a person who has been resurrected to possess an eternally indestructible body. This means the penalty will be felt (Jesus called it eternal fire), but the body will never be destroyed by it. Jesus said that every idle word that men speak, they will have to face an accounting for in that day. When the entire total tally has been summed up, the person is cast into a Lake of Fire to face the eternal experience of whatever the tally sheet calls for. This is what it means to face the power of God in the light of the justice of God.