One thing that is often hard to deal with for many Christians is judgment. No I’m not talking about God’s judgment but the judgment that comes from other Christians. I’ve seen and experienced a few examples of it at times. It often comes about when people have a different view.
With elections coming up m in Australia in a couple of weeks, I was listening to a local candidate standing for the Christian Democrat party and he was saying how Christians can have very different views which is why we have different denominations and churches with different ideas. He also said it’s okay to have different ideas.
The trouble is some people seem to think anything that is different from their view must be wrong. Rather than allowing that the other believer has a different but equally valid take on things, they stand in judgment on the other person.
You see it happen all the time in areas like a Christian’s view to things like worship and baptism, music and music styles, through to attitudes towards appearance, alcohol, movies, books, the list goes on. People disagree and then stand in judgment on the other person with the differing view.
This is, despite being warned in the bible not to judge others.’Do not judge lest you be judged. For in the way you judge others you will be judged; and by your standard of measure it will be measured back to you,’ Matthew 7:1-2.
Jesus went on to talk about the danger of looking at what we perceive as sin in the other person’s life while refusing to acknowledge the bigger sins in our own lives. Jesus calls it hypocrisy and sadly many of us are guilty of it at times.
So next time before we are so quick to criticize other Christians for their words or behavior, or because they hold a different view to us on a particular issue, we should each remember these words and instead look at our own lives and what needs to be repented of confessed and changed there.
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