Skip to main content

Don't Judge Me!

I have heard this phrase used frequently. Recently, while waiting on a customer, I asked a woman if the baby she was holding was hers.  I meant no harm when I asked and I certainly was insinuating nothing.  I was only curious and I absolutely love children.  Another woman, the baby’s mother, looked me square in the face and told me “in no uncertain terms” that I had no right to judge her daughter.  Wow!!!  I hear it used by others at work and I confess that I have jokingly used it myself. What concerns me is that, in our culture, it seems if I disagree with someone else’s opinion or something they are doing suddenly, I have judged them.  Perhaps we need to redefine or rather get back to what it really means to “judge” someone.  The word judge is a judicial term meaning to pronounce sentence on a guilty party. When we judge, we are pronouncing sentence on a person.  According to the words of Jesus, we are not to judge, sentence anyone. Even with the woman caught in adultery Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you."   Jesus, the only one who had a right to act as judge did not condemn her. His only concern was that she go and sin no more.  As Jesus looks at you and me, he says the same thing he said to her, “I don’t pronounce judgment on you."  When we trust him, he says you are not guilty.  I am not in the place of God to sentence anyone.  At times, my love for God and others may compel me let you know what you are doing is wrong.  How will you and I know what sin is if everyone is afraid to call something wrong. I know that Hell is just as real as Heaven and I do not want anyone to go there.  Love never judges, but it may bring us face to face with sin so that we can turn and be saved.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Live Fearlessly

                                   As I was driving home today, I passed a person walking on the side of the    road.  Since it was cold, and snowy, I thought I should stop and offer the person a ride.  As I drove on by, I was irritated with myself for not stopping.  I could have and should have but I didn't. Why?  I was scared! Maybe that wouldn't bother you, but I'm willing to bet there are things that make you afraid.  It may be snakes or spiders that send the ticker into  overdrive.  Or maybe it's your job and finances that keep you up at night when you should be resting.  Then again perhaps it's relationships that consume your thoughts and energy.  As followers of God, we know that we are told not to be afraid.  Yet we often are afraid despite everything we know.   As I was driving away from a misse...

Tragedy: A Christian Response

I want to start by telling you a story.  We were new parents.  When Our oldest, a son, was about eighteen to twenty months we had another baby, a girl with brown hair and huge eyes.   One day as I went to feed her, my son who may have been two at the time wandered off to another part of the house.  The next thing I heard was a thud.  I grabbed my baby girl and ran to see what happened.  There was my son with a table on top of him.  He had pulled it over on himself and more blood than I had ever seen was running all over.   We put him in the car and dashed for the ER.  It was not a fun trip. He had a skull fracture and many stitches.  Fast forward about fourteen or fifteen years, I’m at a stop light and watch my youngest daughter about ten start across a street on a bike start across a street just as a truck comes around a corner into the path of the bike.  She hit the side of the truck and bounced onto the road....

Just A Word of Praise!!

  On Sunday, after church, we went to a town about thirty minutes away.   On the way we drove through an area where they were working on the road.  It was no big deal.  We had lunch, bought some food for the week, and drove back home.    Later, as we were on our way to church for the evening service, I heard the ominous flapping sound that a tire makes when it’s flat.  Yikes!  I pulled over and while I was debating how I was going to change a tire.  A car coming in the opposite direction drove by and stopped.   As the driver appeared from the vehicle, I recognized him as a neighbor and fellow believer.  He approached the car, and asked if I had an air compressor to inflate the tire.  My answer, “Yes, but I’m not sure how good it is.  I’ve never actually managed to inflate a tire using it. I may not be using it properly.”   I produced it from the trunk of the car and handed it to him.  Within...