Judge Not.

Okay, so we all know who our President is for the next four years. Some people were relieved and ecstatic; others…were less than thrilled. As I scrolled down my Facebook newsfeed, I saw status updates and posts that were a bit outlandish and outright disrespectful. On both sides. To be completely transparent, my first instinct was to call out these people with a sarcastic cutting remark.

As I was quietly snickering to myself over the keyboard, ready to show the world of Facebook how un-Christ like  their behavior was while showing off my clever* remarks (*read: completely unnecessary antagonistic remarks) I stopped--my finger hovering right over the mouse, ready to click the post button—ready to mock these people endlessly. I instantly felt convicted. Cutting people down (especially with my motives) was not Christ-like. I was not any better than anyone else. Then, I remembered a sermon I heard a while back…

“Judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give freely, and you will receive freely.”  Luke 6:37-38

Let’s just start with the first one.

Judge not, and you will not be judged.

Just think about that. We all judge people, I mean let’s just be really honest, you and I both know that it is a hard thing not to do sometimes...especially during the political election. No matter how hard it may be, we have to strive past that.

We have to show God to the world by being an example of His love.

Not a single person on this earth is perfect. Not one.

We all have a flaw; we all have our "down-times," so why do we think it’s okay for us to have those moments or those flaws, but no other people can experience those?

It’s not okay.

It is not our place, and it will never be our place to judge other people. EVER. We are all under God's amazing grace, we all fail. We just have to remember that it isn’t our place to judge anyone. No one is an exception to this rule....

Now let’s take a look at the second part.

Condemn not and you will not be condemned.

 It’s like when we were younger and when one of our siblings did something wrong, so we felt that we should be the ones to punish and correct them.

 Of course then we would hear our parents “you’re not the parent, I am, I will deal with him, you just leave him to me!"

Well it’s just like that...we are not the "parents," God is. We should leave it to Him.

At the same time, we should never hope that "someone gets what they deserve" because after all, we didn’t get what we deserve.

We were given a relationship with God when that was something that we could never deserve. We were given salvation, forgiveness and unconditional love...there is no way anyone deserves that. We should be kind and hope that they are given what we have been given...and that is mercy and grace.

 Forgive and you will be forgiven.

First off we should know that to forgive means to release.

This one reminds me of the Bible story where this guy owes a king 54 million gold coins (not for sure on the exact amount, however, it was VERY high).  This guy could not pay the king back, and was expecting to be tortured for punishment. The king, however, shows mercy to this guy and removes ALL debt to that person-- he RELEASES him from that debt. 

While the man who has just been forgiven walks down the street, he sees someone who owes him 40 coins. After the guy who owes 40 coins explains that he cannot pay, because he does not have any money, the guy who had just been released sends the man who owes money into prison where he was to be tortured. Of course the king heard of this and demanded that the guy who had previously been forgiven to "sit down and have a chat" the king just couldn’t believe that after he had forgiven this guy after he owed so much money, that he couldn't show the same kindness to another person. He demanded that the guy pay back the money after all.  We need to RELEASE people, or else we will not be released.

Be honest-- we can’t just go and say "oh yeah...uhhh...I forgive you...I guess." We have to mean it; we have to forgive the person from our heart. We have to RELEASE that person from their debt.

 And the last one...

 Give freely and you will receive freely.

That doesn’t really need much of an explanation. We should give from the heart openly and freely. We should give all that we can! For we are going to bless others and in turn be blessed!

Don’t think of that as a motivation tactic, because it isn’t.  It’s just a fact that happens to have some perks to it. It’s a command that comes with blessings, and those are my favorite kind.

 

-Caiti