Judge not, that you be not
judged. —Matthew 7:1
“Jesus’ instructions with
regard to judging others is very simply put; He says, “Don’t.” The average
Christian is the most piercingly critical individual known. Criticism is one of
the ordinary activities of people, but in the spiritual realm nothing is accomplished
by it. […] The Holy Spirit is the only one in the proper position to criticize,
and He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. […]
Criticism serves to make you harsh, vindictive, and cruel, and leaves you with
the soothing and flattering idea that you are somehow superior to others. Jesus
says that as His disciple you should cultivate a temperament that is never
critical. […] If I see the little speck in your eye, it means that I have a
plank of timber in my own (see Matthew 7:3-5). Every wrong thing that I see in
you, God finds in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17-24).
[…] I have never met a person I could despair of, or lose all hope for, after
discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.” CHAMBERS
Jesus did not say to ignore
sin. Our challenge is to recognize sin without
condemning the sinner. We must be
careful that we don’t take on the role of the Holy Spirit which is to convict
the sinner or that of God which is to judge the sinner. We should not ignore sin. We certainly should not condone sin. Are you familiar with the phrase, “Hate the
sin and love the sinner”? Did you know
that it is not a Bible verse? It is a
quote from writings by St. Augustine and
Mohandas Gandhi’s (most know Gandhi as Mahatma [Sanskrit for “the great-souled
one”]). Certainly the principle is Biblical.
John 3:16 is the best known
verse that tells us that God loves us, but Jesus had to die for us because of our
sin. Paul reinforces that truth in Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his
own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Not judging others has to do
with the sinner and not the sin. When we
judge others, we are condemning them in our hearts. There is a parable about the unforgiving
servant that Jesus used to get the point across. (Matthew
18:21-35) The servant wanted forgiveness
but was unwilling to show it toward others. Certainly there are consequences of
sin, but one of them is not to be our judgement. We must leave that to the Judge. We should not accept sin. We certainly should
not participate in it. Although, we are
not to condemn the sinner, sin is never OK.
Is it wrong to speak out against sin? No. But it is wrong to hate people
because of their sin. They need Jesus
and we are the ones that are supposed to tell the sinner about God’s grace and
mercy. How do we have the capacity to do that?
Only through the power of the Spirit in us. And by the way, that feeling a person has
well up inside them when they are judging others does not come from God, it is
not righteous anger … well, it’s their own sin.
Read about the speck and the beam in Matthew 7. CHARLEY
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