Reserve Judgement

Good morning and greetings to everyone. I believe that you are growing in the Lord, sustained by the Lord, nourished and cherished and provided for by the Lord. Our Lord is a merciful Saviour and a loving Father. He comes to us in the person of the Holy Spirit, constantly being our helper and our guide through every season of our life.

Proverbs 24:23 says, “It is wrong to show favouritism when passing judgment.”

When you are judging someone and you show favouritism, it is wrong, it is an evil thing in the eyes of the Lord. Why is it even encouraging us to pass judgement? It is necessary for us to have discernment towards every person we meet. When we are meeting someone it is normal for us to conclude certain things about them.

But it says, “It is wrong to show favouritism when passing judgment.” Jesus would expound on this later by saying that we should not judge others before judging our own selves. What we do is that we judge others and tell others as to how they have missed the mark, and yet we don’t judge ourselves and see the wrong in us. And here the wise man says that when you show favouritism when you are not showing the same judgement towards yourself, but you are expecting others to stand by that particular standard, then it is a wrong thing.

This morning we need to inspect our hearts and mind. We need to inspect the process of evaluating others. Do we need to ask ourselves how often do we show favouritism? How often do we judge our family with one standard and our friends with another standard?

It’s necessary that we ask ourselves; have we been judging others and other communities before we judge our own hearts and our own community? This morning let there be a deep process in our hearts. We should also understand that the same measure with which we judge others, we will also be judged. If we are expecting mercy, justice and help from God then we have to be the first ones to show the same grace and mercy and help to somebody else.

We usually think that passing a judgement is something that is done publicly, something which hurts someone. Now, judgement can happen in a very subtle manner; in a moment of prayer when we are talking our hearts out to God, you might be actually judging somebody else. It can happen when you are talking to your best friends or your family. It can happen even inside of your own head. All of those things come in the category of judgement.

My prayer and hope this morning is that we will reserve our judgements towards others, for others only after we have first judged ourselves, our own families and churches and standards.

When we look at ourselves and we judge ourselves and we allow the Lord to transform our hearts before we begin to point fingers at others, there will be so much mercy and grace and the love of God and help of God that will be released when we judge and help others and we provide our assessment and evaluation of somebody’s else’s life.