Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written:
“ ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.’ ” So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. (Romans 14:4, 10-13 NIV84)
I really wanted to put the entire chapter of Romans 14 in here. Read it. You will be challenged!
I read this this morning. It was very timely, as Gods word always seems to be. This has been something God has been challenging me on lately.
We are all judges. We judge our neighbors, those we see in the grocery store, those we work with....really it goes on and on. We are always deciding what we think of this person or that person. We are forming opinions about them. Making assessments about them. It seems to be our nature to do these things.
It seems to me God has layed out a better plan. He tells us not to judge. Not to make assessments or decisions on people. To love them instead.
Ok, so obviously we are not God. God IS love. We are not. But, when challenged to become more like Christ I think it deserves looking at.
God clearly says in His word we are all accountable to him for our actions. He is Holy so He holds us to a pretty high standard. Thankfully we have a Savior who died on the cross so that we have a hope. Without Him there is no way we will ever please a Holy God.
God wants us to focus on Him. He doesn't want us wasting our time judging others. He wants us to use that energy focusing on getting to know Him more and more every day. We don't know a person like God knows that person. We don't know what is truly going on in their lives. We don't know their hurts, struggles. We don't know what God is doing in their lives. And it really isn't our job to know what is going on in their lives. He has instructed us to love one another, not understand one another, not to fix one another, to love.
This is hard for me. I have a lot of opinions. I don't think they are all right, but I have a lot. I want to judge less. I want to love more. Maybe that is just the idea. Maybe God was just trying to tell some of us,through Paul, to get over ourselves and our opinions. To realize we don't have all the answers for life. Paul knew who did know all the answers and He IS love. Let's try to love more and judge less. It won't be easy but I think it is worth the effort.
Blessings
