With God's Help: Devotions from Time of GraceÖrnek

Who, me? Judgmental? Scots poet Robert Burns offered some immortal lines on the difficulty of self-awareness: “O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us. To see oursels as ithers see us!” Why can we see so clearly the flaws in others and be so unaware of our own? If only we could see ourselves as ithers see us. You and I, for instance, are probably just as judgmental as the people we resent for being judgmental. When Jesus told his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount not to judge so they wouldn’t be judged, he wanted to warn them of the terrible sin of hypocrisy--thinking you are morally superior to other people, innocent of sin, more valuable to God, worthy of greater honor. In fact, we are in as much need of Christ’s mercy as any other person. Sin eats away at everything we think, say, or do, everything stained and twisted by the selfishness we drag around. Without Christ we, too, would wear a toe tag for hell. So? So “let us stop passing judgment on one another” (Romans 14:13). As fellow lepers, we can simply pass on the healing gospel of Christ. Our judgmental words can be replaced with words of kindness and encouragement.