Life Lessons

Lessons 5 - Judging Others

 

            Here’s a life lesson for you. It is my contention that Christians are partially responsible for some people to turn away from God. Here’s a real life example that just took place at my job the other day. 

            Guy #1, who does not know the Lord, was told by a “religious” person, we’ll call guy #2, that guy #1 shouldn’t be cursing, especially on that day, because it was Good Friday. Then guy #2 proceeded to drop an F bomb himself less than 5 minutes later. That would make guy #2 a hypocrite and that’s exactly how guy #1 saw it. 

            Point #1 – Chances are guy #1 may know very little to nothing about the significance of Good Friday. Point #2 – His cussing is not going to send him to hell, his rejection of Christ will. Point #3 – Guy #1 doesn’t know any better. Point #4 - Guy #2 DOES know better. Point #5 – Guy #2 was judging Guy #1 for doing something that he does as well.

             There are too many people like Guy #2 who pass judgment with their words of indictment and they need to stop that. Frankly, it may be fair to say that we ALL are guilty of judging others when we may be the last person who needs to be the judge. We are not called to judge others, but rather to love them, not just by our words, but by our actions as well. They say, “a picture’s worth a thousand words”, so how much louder would someone’s actions speak? Words without corresponding action can tend to sound hollow and meaningless.

Once a person receives Christ, the Holy Spirit will deal with the profanity issue. Sometimes we clean up our language only to have it re-emerge sometime down the road. Let me repeat was I said in Point #3 above … people who don’t have a relationship with God don’t think anything of cussing and that should be understandable to us. It doesn’t make it okay, but it is not our place to instruct him regarding what may be perceived as our regimented list of Do’s & Don’ts. Some of us need to get off our high horse before we make a fool of ourselves in front of others. We must humble ourselves. We are better than no one. We aren’t to compare ourselves to others, but rather to God. This will put us in the place where we belong, beneath the Lord and equal with everyone else. Salvation doesn’t elevate you in status; it forgives you of your sins. That makes you different in that one respect; otherwise, we are really no different than those who are unsaved. No matter how hard you try, even your best efforts will fall short in your quest to be just like Christ. In spite of that, continue striving to be a living example of our Lord, because as the saying goes, “actions speak louder than words”. 

Next time we’ll take a look at the fact that NO ONE’S PERFECT. Until then, walk with the King and be a blessing. 

In His Name & for His Glory,

Richard Keller

Bread of Life Ministries