May 12, 2016
Matthew 7:1-2
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
CONSIDER THIS
1. I judge other people because I want to affirm myself for the superiority of my mediocrity.
2. I judge other people because it enables me to condemn what I dislike about myself in others.
3. I judge other people because I desperately need to believe that I am somehow better than other people.
4. I judge other people because it is easier to compare myself to the faults I find in others than it is to aspire to the greatness I see in them.
5. I judge other people as a way of protecting myself, because I am unwilling to become vulnerable about my own life.
6. I judge other people because somehow by putting others down I think I am lifting myself up.
7. I judge other people because I am deceived about the truth of myself.
8. I judge other people because it’s easier than honestly evaluating myself.
Wesley gives us a stern warning on this point.
There is no station of life, nor any period of time, from the hour of our first repenting and believing the gospel till we are made perfect in love, wherein this caution is not needful for every child of God. For occasions of judging can never be wanting. And the temptations to it are innumerable; many whereof are so artfully disguised that we fall into the sin before we suspect any danger.
Your turn. So why do you judge other people? Oops! I did it again.
THE QUESTIONS
1. Which ones of the eight reasons (if any) do you identify with?
2. How do you excuse yourself by calling the ways you evaluate other people as something other than “judging them.” For instance, I tend to deceive myself by telling myself and others that I am not “judging” someone but I am making judgments. ;0)
3. Have you come to the realization that we tend to most dislike and judge in others what we most dislike about ourselves? How does that work? Why is that?
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J.D. Walt, is a Bond Slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. jd.walt@seedbed.com.