I used to hate it when people would quote Matthew 7:1 at me but that's because deep down inside I was convicted by those provoking words. I thought I had arrived in my Christian walk and was very pleased with my career as a critic of all who didn't measure up. It's amazing how faithful God is to His promises, though. Sure enough, it happened. God's love set the stage for me to be judged as I had judged others and it turned out to be one of the most liberating experiences of my entire life. God broke me with the perspective He gave me and it set me free!
Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV) "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"
I had never pinned the words of Jeremiah on my own life before but as I watched people who were dear to me tear me down and throw me away I realized that the picture they were painting was of ME! That was precisely who I had been for the past ten years of my life: righteous in my own eyes but deceived by my own heart! As I began reading the Bible with a humbled heart instead of filtering the Bible with my preconceived notions I found that it was ME who didn't measure up. Sure, I had all my religious ducks in a row, I had all the right stands and convictions, I was even pleasing in the eyes of those around me but my works were fighting God for His deity! God wasn't nearly as impressed with me as I was! Paul closed out the first chapter of Romans with a pretty nasty list of sins as he described those who live life for the flesh. The list included everything from fornication, malice, debate and envy to covetousness, deciet and haters of God. As we read through this extensive list our minds wander to those we know who live out of control with these issues. Before you know it we are beating our chest in the temple court thanking God we aren't like those people only to be slapped in the face with the opening lines of chapter two...
Romans 2:1-3 (KJV) "Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. [2] But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. [3] And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?"
As those critical scales fall from our eyes we can shift back to that list of sins at the end of chapter one and, rather than think about the worst of the worst, we will find where most all of them still exist in our hearts today! As I realized how weak I really am to sin and it's grasp, how unstable I am without God's daily mercy, how deceived I was keeping myself to my own current nature and how little I really knew about my fellow man I laid my Pharisaical garments aside, I repented to God for how I'd tried to do His job and I apologized publicly and personally to those I knew I had hurt.
Romans 2:11 (KJV) "For there is no respect of persons with God."
The word person here comes from a Greek word that literally means "a mask that you wear." Our reputations with people are very easy to manipulate with all sorts of facades that we put on. We shield our hurt with humor, hide behind our pride, take on attributes in order to fit in, shade the truth in order to make our character more digestible and all of that combines to make up our "person" but God doesn't buy that version of me. While I'm calling out my brothers and sisters for how they dress, what they post on Facebook, what they've done in the past and where they go to church God knows all the "little" sins I'm hiding. He saw me snap at my wife, act selfish towards my children, sleep my prayer time away, lust when nobody was looking, live arrogantly toward those behind me....and, oh, how the list could go on. Paul assured us in verses thirty-three and thirty-four of Romans chapter eight that the only one who could condemn a man is Christ and that was after he had already promised us in verse one of the same chapter that Christ wasn't condemning anybody who walked after the Spirit! We have liberty from God to walk, stumble, grow, struggle, learn and live but we step way off of our path of safety and give up that liberty when we try to do the job of judging our fellow man. Further more, we apply pressures to the lives of real children of God that is absolutely undue! We apply pressures that may momentarily achieve our carnal, religious goals but wind up frustrating and stunting the real growth in their lives. We have no right or licence to do such things! The world is hurting and desperate for answers but false perfection, critical condemnation and self righteousness is hurting the cause. My, how we worry ourselves with the downfalls of others when we don't even really know our own hearts! How arrogant it is for us to be so self satisfied when God is not decieved at all about our current condition! Are you brave enough today to sit down with the book of Romans and ask God with an open heart to let you see as much of yourself as you can handle? What's it going to take to break you of judging others?
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