When you judge others
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Isaiah 40:1-2
Read Romans 2:1—4
It is easy to let it slip. Easy. Easy to let slip this living by grace alone. Time spent living this Christian way does not seem to make it easier. In fact, if anything, time put in on the Christian way can even increase the chances of my heart hardening into self-righteousness. I can find someone, first, that I disagree with. Next I realise they’re actually wrong. Not just different, but wrong. Next I trace it to their bad faith, the wreckage of poor theology. Now I give in to censoriousness, and I am away — free to indulge myself. I’m out to judge but not to save. My heart has turned hard.
Lord, I need tonight’s word. I need you to tell me again and afresh to leave judgement to you. I need it because I need to be saved from it. I know the temptation to love being right, especially being the only one. To go over and over again how wayward the wrong is. To win every argument in the privacy of my own study, or addressing the chooks out the back. This thinking shores me up against others. Now that I see myself like this, now that I am awakened by your warning, I see, just a little, how truly unattractive I can become, even when I am right. Dear Lord, save me from that. You have saved me from my own foul sin. Save me from pride when I see sin in another. Instead, fill me with a heart not for judgement, but passionate for restoration.