"Judge not, that ye be not
judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with
what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why
beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest
not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy
brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam
is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of
thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out
of thy brother's eye" (Matthew 7:1-5).
What you are hearing is the voice of your heavenly Father. We
must have a different kind of righteousness from what the scribes and
Pharisees had. They wore theirs on their sleeves; it was superficial.
Ours must grow out of a heart committed to the Father. Jesus, here in
the Sermon on the Mount, deals with two different extremes of the
problem of human judgment. The first extreme is a harsh, critical
spirit. The second extreme is permissiveness. As Jesus looked at the
religious situation of his day, he saw that judging others had become a
great religious problem. The Pharisees and scribes sat in the place of
the critic. They were quick to pass judgment on those who didn’t live up
to their expectations. The Pharisees, in their self-righteous
arrogance, had created a special class of people called "sinners," as if
they themselves were righteous or holy. The Pharisees were used to
judging others self-righteously.
Did Jesus mean that other Christians are not to confront us when we stumble into sin? Did Jesus mean that we are to be tolerant of the sinful practices of others because we may have sin in our lives? Did Jesus mean that to "not judge" was to forsake being involved in the moral aspects of other people's lives? What, then, did Jesus mean when he said, “Judge not?” The word translated “judge” often means to condemn. It means to come to a negative conclusion about another person and then to condemn, and even excommunicate him. That is what Jesus is forbidding. Let me be a little more specific about this. First, we are not to pass final judgment on any person. Final judgment belongs to the Lord. We are not in the condemning business. If anyone needs to be condemned, God himself can take care of that. We should have no part in it. Second, we are not to judge the motives of others. The Bible says, “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” Often we are quick to come to negative conclusions about others based on why we think they did something. But try as we might, we see only the outside. God alone sees the heart. We can judge what people do; we cannot judge why they do it. We can judge what people say; we cannot judge why they say it.
Only God can judge the hidden secrets of the heart. Leave that judgment to him. You don’t even know your own heart, much less the heart of anyone else. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it?” All of us can remember times when we did or said something foolish, and looking back we can honestly say, “I don’t know why I did something stupid like that.” But if we can’t understand our own heart, how can we ever presume to understand another person's heart? Third, we are not to be faultfinders. Faultfinding is the “venom of the soul.” It destroys our joy, drains our happiness, and prevents us from having close friendships. No one likes a faultfinder because no one likes being around a nit-picking critic. This sin comes partly from spiritual pride and partly from disguised envy. We criticize others in order to bring them down to our level. Or worse, we tear them down to prove they are really beneath us. Faultfinding is a deadly disease because if not kept in check, it turns us into cynics who expect the worst from others. The faultfinder expects failure and secretly gloats when he finds it. Is it any wonder that the faultfinder almost always is a gossiper and a talebearer? First we spot the flaws of others and then we can’t wait to spread the news. Like the vultures of the air that live on dead bodies, rotting flesh, these sad individuals thrive on the mistakes and sins of others. They fly across the landscape, keeping a close eye out for the failures of others. Then they swoop in for their daily feast. We see husbands going hard on their wives. Wives mercilessly criticizing their husbands. Parents tearing down their children and striping away every vestige of self-esteem. Friends attacking friends, Christians criticizing each other, and many families are held together by the glue of mutual disdain. Why is it that we are so hard on those we say we love the most? But if a person we don’t know offends us, we’re quick to let him off the hook. It makes no sense. If I am honest with myself, I know that I’m far too quick to pass judgment on others. Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” If we would pray that way and mean it, we would do a lot more confessing and a lot less judging. We are to judge ourselves first by asking God to show us our sins. We sit and wait and pray for the Holy Spirit to show us our weaknesses, our faults, our mistakes, our bad attitudes, our foolish words, our pride, our arrogance, our need to be in control, our need to run the world, our need to tell others what to do, our desire to have our own way, our anger, our bitterness, our lack of mercy, our lack of love, our lack of compassion. Let me tell you something from personal experience, if you wait long enough, the Lord will always show it to you. Did you notice what Jesus called the judgmental person in verse 5? He called him a hypocrite. What a terrible word that is. That’s what we are when we judge and condemn others without first judging ourselves. First, we ask the Lord to show us our sins. Once we have allowed the Holy Spirit to do his painful surgery within, once we have confessed and repented and mourned over our own sin, then and only then are we ready to do surgery on someone else. This is how you will know you have reached that point: Your own sins will bother you a lot more than the sins of others. And the failures of others won’t seem so huge to you. You’ll know you’re ready to talk to a brother or sister when you don’t want to commit sin any more. To simply gaze on the sins of others is vain and empty and wrong. It turns us into judgmental Pharisees who are quick to condemn. But once we are cleansed and humbled by the Lord, then we are ready to remove the tiny speck from a brother’s eye. And he will be glad for us to do it because he knows we are not there to condemn but to help. I have found that those most critical of others tend to have the most sins. And those closest to God tend to be the most charitable. They are the quickest to forgive, quickest to restore, and the quickest to help someone who is struggling with sin. We have no time to hate, no time to condemn, no time to live in bitterness. As you read and apply this message to your heart, God will richly bless you. Remain blessed in the LORD. Keep on reading and following the LORD, JESUS CHRIST...@fasuchem, #fasuchem, http://fasuchem.blogspot.com/, http://fasuchem.wordpress.com/, http://fasuchem.livejournal.com/, http://fasuchem.tumblr.com/, http://fasuchem.blog.com/, http://fasuchem.tblog.com/, http://my.opera.com/fasuchem/blog/, http://twitter.com/fasuchem/, http://facebook.com/fasuchem/, etc.
Did Jesus mean that other Christians are not to confront us when we stumble into sin? Did Jesus mean that we are to be tolerant of the sinful practices of others because we may have sin in our lives? Did Jesus mean that to "not judge" was to forsake being involved in the moral aspects of other people's lives? What, then, did Jesus mean when he said, “Judge not?” The word translated “judge” often means to condemn. It means to come to a negative conclusion about another person and then to condemn, and even excommunicate him. That is what Jesus is forbidding. Let me be a little more specific about this. First, we are not to pass final judgment on any person. Final judgment belongs to the Lord. We are not in the condemning business. If anyone needs to be condemned, God himself can take care of that. We should have no part in it. Second, we are not to judge the motives of others. The Bible says, “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” Often we are quick to come to negative conclusions about others based on why we think they did something. But try as we might, we see only the outside. God alone sees the heart. We can judge what people do; we cannot judge why they do it. We can judge what people say; we cannot judge why they say it.
Only God can judge the hidden secrets of the heart. Leave that judgment to him. You don’t even know your own heart, much less the heart of anyone else. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it?” All of us can remember times when we did or said something foolish, and looking back we can honestly say, “I don’t know why I did something stupid like that.” But if we can’t understand our own heart, how can we ever presume to understand another person's heart? Third, we are not to be faultfinders. Faultfinding is the “venom of the soul.” It destroys our joy, drains our happiness, and prevents us from having close friendships. No one likes a faultfinder because no one likes being around a nit-picking critic. This sin comes partly from spiritual pride and partly from disguised envy. We criticize others in order to bring them down to our level. Or worse, we tear them down to prove they are really beneath us. Faultfinding is a deadly disease because if not kept in check, it turns us into cynics who expect the worst from others. The faultfinder expects failure and secretly gloats when he finds it. Is it any wonder that the faultfinder almost always is a gossiper and a talebearer? First we spot the flaws of others and then we can’t wait to spread the news. Like the vultures of the air that live on dead bodies, rotting flesh, these sad individuals thrive on the mistakes and sins of others. They fly across the landscape, keeping a close eye out for the failures of others. Then they swoop in for their daily feast. We see husbands going hard on their wives. Wives mercilessly criticizing their husbands. Parents tearing down their children and striping away every vestige of self-esteem. Friends attacking friends, Christians criticizing each other, and many families are held together by the glue of mutual disdain. Why is it that we are so hard on those we say we love the most? But if a person we don’t know offends us, we’re quick to let him off the hook. It makes no sense. If I am honest with myself, I know that I’m far too quick to pass judgment on others. Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” If we would pray that way and mean it, we would do a lot more confessing and a lot less judging. We are to judge ourselves first by asking God to show us our sins. We sit and wait and pray for the Holy Spirit to show us our weaknesses, our faults, our mistakes, our bad attitudes, our foolish words, our pride, our arrogance, our need to be in control, our need to run the world, our need to tell others what to do, our desire to have our own way, our anger, our bitterness, our lack of mercy, our lack of love, our lack of compassion. Let me tell you something from personal experience, if you wait long enough, the Lord will always show it to you. Did you notice what Jesus called the judgmental person in verse 5? He called him a hypocrite. What a terrible word that is. That’s what we are when we judge and condemn others without first judging ourselves. First, we ask the Lord to show us our sins. Once we have allowed the Holy Spirit to do his painful surgery within, once we have confessed and repented and mourned over our own sin, then and only then are we ready to do surgery on someone else. This is how you will know you have reached that point: Your own sins will bother you a lot more than the sins of others. And the failures of others won’t seem so huge to you. You’ll know you’re ready to talk to a brother or sister when you don’t want to commit sin any more. To simply gaze on the sins of others is vain and empty and wrong. It turns us into judgmental Pharisees who are quick to condemn. But once we are cleansed and humbled by the Lord, then we are ready to remove the tiny speck from a brother’s eye. And he will be glad for us to do it because he knows we are not there to condemn but to help. I have found that those most critical of others tend to have the most sins. And those closest to God tend to be the most charitable. They are the quickest to forgive, quickest to restore, and the quickest to help someone who is struggling with sin. We have no time to hate, no time to condemn, no time to live in bitterness. As you read and apply this message to your heart, God will richly bless you. Remain blessed in the LORD. Keep on reading and following the LORD, JESUS CHRIST...@fasuchem, #fasuchem, http://fasuchem.blogspot.com/, http://fasuchem.wordpress.com/, http://fasuchem.livejournal.com/, http://fasuchem.tumblr.com/, http://fasuchem.blog.com/, http://fasuchem.tblog.com/, http://my.opera.com/fasuchem/blog/, http://twitter.com/fasuchem/, http://facebook.com/fasuchem/, etc.
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