God’s Return

What does “don’t judge or you’ll be judged” mean? (Matthew 7:1) It means we will be judged in the same way that we judge others. This is an example of sowing and reaping that we talked about in the last post. And this is really cool, because we can set ourselves up for blessing (or the opposite – it’s our choice).

Judging and forgiving are complete opposites. When someone does evil against us, we are either doing one or the other. This relationship law goes far beyond the evil done to us. Because unfortunately, our judging often goes far beyond the evil done to us.

We judge things we don’t like, even though the person isn’t doing anything to us. We sometimes make our personal preferences into idols, and then our self-righteousness makes them doctrine to impose on others. At that point, we’ve become Pharisees, who made the Traditions of the Elders equal to the Law of Moses (Matthew 15:1-6).

Churches have split over the style of music or the color of the carpet. Ever condemn a style of music you didn’t like? If the words are sinful, then the words are certainly wrong, but not the style. The style, the instrumental music itself, is ok even if we don’t personally like it.

So if it’s something that doesn’t affect us, if it isn’t a black ‘n’ white contradiction to the Word of God, and if it isn’t self-destructive behavior, we’re better off dropping it. It’s probably just our personal preference. And we’ll receive the same grace from God we give the other person (or not).

Mercy triumphs over judgment.

We’d love to hear your story of mercy and judgement. Please leave a comment or shoot us an email.