Judgement

Naomi Raine, a member of the award-winning gospel music group Maverick City mentioned something about judging others at one of their concerts back in 2021. I know because I was there and what she said pierced my heart so that it helped me to understand the true love of God even more.

She said that we oftentimes take a snapshot of a person's life and we make judgments about them based on the condition that we see them in. She then followed up to say that God is not like that. God is not like us, in how we constantly make judgments about people we don't even know. We dismiss, downplay, and even discredit them because of what their lives have displayed to us in one moment.

I'm glad God is not like this. I'm glad that God didn't judge mankind based on the sin we brought into the world. He gave us grace through Jesus. And who is Jesus? He's God in the flesh. Coming down to bring us closer to the Father by sacrificing Himself on behalf of our sins so that we may live.

So why do we do this? Why do we judge others when we don't even know them? Like who are we to do such things? I believe it's due to our own insecurities. We do this to make ourselves feel bigger and better than what we already are. It's a cover-up. It's an introduction to the religious spirit. People make a hypothesis, and judgments on other people in order to puff themselves up. To make themselves look flawless. This is called pride. Pride is what makes people think more highly of themselves than they ought to.

This reminds me of the Pharisees in the Bible. The ones who covered themselves with many garments including their head in order to appear to be holy, but their actions proved otherwise. Instead of exercising holiness by treating others with love, they mocked and judged others based on the situations they were found in. Jesus on the other hand challenged the Pharisees on their hypocrisy and the judgments they made toward other people.

I believe that the Pharisees had to cover up so much in fear that their true selves, which includes physically would be exposed. To expose them would be to acknowledge that if they stripped all of their pride, they would be just like the ones they judge. Because in reality, they are. Aren't we all the same?

Remember that the servant is not greater than his master. How can Jesus who knew everything about the woman at the well still pardon her? Yet here we are, meeting someone for the first time, talking to them for only 5 minutes and we judge their whole character. We conclude.

So why should we not judge others? We want to make sure that we don't judge others because if we do, they won't see Jesus in us. We want them to see Jesus in us. Notice that the woman at the well ran off and said "hey come see a man who knew everything about me." You would have that same effect. People will be like; "come see someone who didn't judge me in the first 5 minutes of talking to me. They didn't talk behind my back. They didn't lie against me or try to manipulate me. They didn't reject me and walk away because I was different from them. Instead, they showed love."

And now we're left with a question. People are going to come back to you, based on the expression of the one you treated with love. They are going to come back and pose the question; Why? And that is when we can boldly proclaim the reason for the gospel. How Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as He loves. We can boldly say; "Jesus has not rejected you."