I see it everyday. Memes. Comments. Posts. Someone always has something to say about someone else, and it’s not often good. Most of the time it is some kind of commentary on a particular group or type of people, noting how they don’t line up to some standard that the person posting has arbitrarily set.
And this really makes me angry. Particularly when the people that are posting claim to be followers of Christ – Christians.
Two different people that I have talked with this week have said something along the lines of, “I just can’t do church because of the damage done to me by the people who are supposed to be Christ followers.”
This is a problem. Fellow Christians, listen to me – WE ARE THE PROBLEM!
Last I checked, we haven’t been given all of the answers, we haven’t been gifted with the fullness of God’s plans for the world and the humanity therein, but we have specifically been told that we are not to act as judges of our fellow humans.
As I was listening to Pray As You Go this morning, the passage was Romans 2:1-11, which says:
Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. 2 You say, “We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.” 3 Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: 7 to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. 9 There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11 For God shows no partiality.
If God shows no partiality, why do we? After all, Paul tells us here that WE HAVE NO EXCUSE that allows us to judge others.
So, instead of focusing on what everyone else is doing wrong or how everyone else is living their life, how about we focus on where we are in need of God’s grace, and living in such a way that brings glory to God. This kind of life will have more far-reaching and positive impact than one in which we dub ourselves the judge of humankind.
Who is with me?