righteous judgment
Judgment. A topic no one likes, yet something everyone does. Myself included. It’s so easy to jump into an us-versus-them mentality, to feel morally superior to others. I’m guilty of it. It happens without us even cognitively thinking about it. However, if we step back and break down our lives, they would have something in common– sin. There is no human on earth that is morally superior to anyone. We are all imperfect humans living in an imperfect world. So for us to lay judgment on one another is not right.
We judge from a place of self-righteousness. God judges from a place of love & kindness that is meant to guide us. I am a sinner, you are a sinner, therefore we have no right to judge others. (While we are sinners, we can’t let that define who we are.)
Paul addresses this not-so-fun topic in the book of Romans. In Romans, Paul is writing a letter to a church in Rome that had suffered from division. Paul writes this letter to encourage the unity of the church. This unity cannot be reached if we have an us-versus-them mentality. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t wanna hang out with someone who held that mentality. It’s exhausting and depreciating.
With this wrong mentality, we then rank sins in a hierarchy. We put ours at the bottom of the list, and “their sins” at the top. We make the decision ourselves who’s “in” and who’s “out”. Reality check– sin is sin. No sin is greater or worse. So this mentality holds absolutely no ground.
It’s never been more critical than it is right now to simply show love and compassion for everyone we meet. In a world where every corner we turn another tragedy is hiding behind it. In a world where prayers and thoughts don’t seem to be enough. In a nation where many fear the very things that were previously considered freedom and luxury. Unity has never been more important.
We must change our mindsets from an us-versus-them mentality to a love-first one. No matter their beliefs, looks, choices, skin color, past mistakes, etc., we must choose to love first. We have to take every chance we get to share the love of God with others. The bottom line here is LOVE. Love those who think they are unlovable because they are loved by the greatest of all, the ultimate love. Love those who are different. Love those who have hurt or been hurt. Love, love, love.
P.S. I veered a bit from what I had planned to talk about this week, but that's how God sometimes works. If you’re reading this and you feel unloved, wrongly judged, or hurt in any way- send me a message. Let’s talk. Your most certainly loved and I can prove it to you. :)
