Judging Others

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

Judgment by us is a grave problem and it causes relationships to be destroyed. There are many reasons as to why we judge. It might be because of arrogance, progression in the faith, insecurity, feeling as if one has accomplished a lot, knowledge, high grades, good looks, popularity, and such things. But for today I will talk only about the reasons as to why we judge others because of our accomplishments in the faith.

A reason is progression in the faith. We must remember that any progression we have made in our spiritual lives, is due to God alone. It is through His grace that we are able to proceed. An analogy of this grace is like a Father holding the hand of his young child. And the Father knows where He wants the young child to go, and as long as the child is holding the hand of the Father, or at least following Him, He will proceed and progress where he needs to go. The same is true with us, so we should find no reason to boast or parade ourselves in front of others because of the progression that we have made, because all glory is due to God for He is the One who led us, and we become the objects by which He is glorified. Therefore we should say with the David as in Psalm 34:2, “My soul shall make its boast in the LORD; the humble shall hear of it and be glad,” and also St. Paul the Apostle says, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” -Galatians 6:14

If we judge someone because of a sin they are committing (not a sin they are walking in, because walking in sin and sinning are two different things). If we judge someone because of a sin they are committing, most often we will start committing that sin. This is to show the grace of God working in our lives to make us understand that we didn’t overcome the sin from ourselves, but through God we were able to because He is the One who overcame sin. So it is God’s grace that allows us to become free from sin, and not our own efforts. If we spend a lot of time in prayer on a regular basis, we become closer to Him, and He is all pure and holy. An illustration of this would be like a dirty object moving closer to an immense source of water, and that water coming down like a soft mist, will cause the dirt, little by little to be washed off the object, until when the object is with the source, it will become completely clean.

Another problem is gossip. If we gossip, we are judging others, because usually gossip involves judging the other person by criticizing something he or she does. Of this St. James the Apostle says, “Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law… There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?” -James 4:11-12

A good way to keep ourselves from judging is to do this, to remember that whatever we are judging the others of, we are sinners too and we will be judged. The interesting thing is that if we judge others of judging, we are doing the same thing. So actually whatever judgment we are passing on them, we deserve. But we become blinded because of our pride when we start judging, and because of this we stop examining ourselves and repenting. The advice of St. Paul the Apostle applies perfectly to this situation when he says, “For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged” (1 Corinthians 11:31). If we were to judge ourselves we would see that we are sinners, and we struggle just like those we are judging, and then we would repent. But when we stop judging ourselves and judge others, we add to our sins and on the Judgment Day we will be judged with the same measure that we judged as it says in the Gospel.

Last year I was sitting in the college group at our church and one of the girls in the group pulled out a quote from Mother Theresa and read it, which says, “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” This is a strong saying, because if we judge people, we really don’t have time to love them because instead of walking with them in their journey, and encouraging them, and caring about them, we look down on them, and at its worst, we can actually tear them down by saying things to them coming from our judgment.

So when we start to have the impulse to start judging others, let us judge ourselves first, and remind ourselves that we are sinners too. Let us not get confused as to what judgment is though, we might see somebody committing a sin, and we care about that person, and we should do our duty as Christians to go and tell that person that we are concerned and try to help them to get over the sin and pray for them. This is isn’t judgment. Judgment is when we start bringing others below us and condemning them because of their struggles. However we should remember that there is one Judge, and He is Most Faithful and True, and All-Merciful. And remember in the end that we should repent and spend our time in prayer to God and in fellowship with the Church, the Body of Christ. And glory is always due to God, now and until the end, and forever. Amen.