“Judge not, that you be not judged.” —Matthew 7:1
Last week, we talked about building the right life. This week, we’re going to stay in Matthew 7 and talk about judging others.
When it comes to living the way we’re supposed to, there’s no one better to listen to than Jesus. And when it comes to judging others, Jesus has a lot to say.
Today, I have five observations and one takeaway question from Jesus’s teachings on judgment here in Matthew 7. Let’s get started.
1. We will be judged if we judge others.
“Judge not, that you be not judged.” —Matthew 7:1
When we use the word “judging,” we usually think of one person making judgments about another. And we’ve each been on both sides of that before. We’ve all judged someone else and had someone else judge us.
We don’t like being judged by others, do we? It doesn’t feel good. And guess what? When we judge others, they don’t like it, either.
If we don’t want to be judged, then we can’t judge others. When we do, we’re perpetuating the cycle of judgment, and it’s only a matter of time before it comes back around to us. If we don’t want others judging us, then we shouldn’t be judging them. It’s that simple.
Of course, God is the ultimate judge, and one day, we will stand before Him and answer for everything we’ve ever done. So if we’re judging others, we’ll not only have to face judgment from other people in this life; we’ll also be judged by God for it one day.
I’d say we’re better off avoiding judgment altogether, wouldn’t you?
2. We will be judged the same way we judge.
“For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” —Matthew 7:2
Judgment is a cycle, and if we keep the cycle going, then we’re setting ourselves up for a lot of trouble.
We often hold other people to higher standards than we even do ourselves. It’s easy to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, but we don’t always do the same for others. And so we judge them more harshly.
Jesus says that whatever standard we hold for other people is the standard that we’ll be held to. Do we expect others to be perfect? Then we better be ready to measure up. But if we offer other people grace, then we can expect grace for ourselves as well.
It all goes back to the golden rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated. Do you want other people to give you the benefit of the doubt? Then you should be giving it to them. That’s how we avoid judging others and bringing that same hard judgment upon ourselves.
3. We’ve got our own faults.
“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” —Matthew 7:3
Sometimes, we judge other people to try to make ourselves feel better. If you look hard enough, you can always find someone with more faults and struggles than you do, and comparing yourself to them might make you look a little better, at least in your own eyes.
But at the end of the day, we shouldn’t be comparing ourselves to others. We should be comparing ourselves to God, and He’s perfect. None of us can measure up to Him.
I can tell you this: I am a full-time project to keep my heart right with God and do the right things. And I can say the same is true about you. We’re all works-in-progress.
None of us has arrived yet, so none of us should be judging anybody else. Only someone who is perfect has a right to judge, and last I checked, none of us is perfect.
A Question to Consider
“Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?” —Matthew 7:4
Jesus is giving us something to think about here, and I really want you to spend some time with it this week. How can we judge someone else’s life when our own lives aren’t where they need to be?
4. We need to clean up our own lives.
“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” —Matthew 7:5
Jesus tells us that when we judge other people, we’re hypocrites. Often, we’re actually worse off than they are! How could we possibly think we’re fit to judge someone else?
The truth is that none of us ever knows what someone else is going through. We don’t know other people’s struggles. Rather than judging them and poking our noses where they don’t belong, we should be working on ourselves, because we’ve each got a lot to improve upon.
We need to be loving people. When you get the impulse to judge someone, that’s a sign that there’s actually something you need to be working on in yourself. It’s not our place to judge others; it’s our place to love them, the way Jesus does. We need to be constantly working on being more like Him.
5. Don’t waste energy judging.
“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.” —Matthew 7:6
Jesus tells us not to throw our pearls before swine. Here’s what I think that means: We shouldn’t be wasting our energy on judging others; instead, we should be using that energy to change ourselves.
God has blessed us with so many opportunities to serve Him, love others, and improve ourselves. If we waste those opportunities on being judgmental and hateful, then we’re just like someone taking something holy and feeding it to a dog. It’s wasteful, and it breaks God’s heart.
We can do better. We’re called to do better. So let’s do better and stop judging other people.
I’d like to finish with a quick story from my life that shows how important this concept is. Last week, I was working a job with my helper, who I have been training. We were finishing up, and he was loading our tools up in the truck. I suddenly realized that I couldn’t find my drill.
So I asked my helper, “Where’s my drill?” and I sort of got onto him for moving my stuff. He told me it was still on the job site where I had left it. So I walked over to look for my drill, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I came back and told him, “My drill isn’t over there.”
He got out of the truck we’d been loading up, walked over to my ladder, and grabbed my drill off the top of it. I had walked right past it and not seen it!
It was bad enough that I missed my drill, but it was worse that I judged my helper and assumed he had misplaced it. That’s what happens when we judge other people; we end up making mistakes and hurting others.
I should have done a better job of not judging in that moment, and I’m trying to learn from this experience. I hope you’ll learn from my mistake, too.
There’s no place in the Christian life for judging others. Jesus didn’t judge other people, and He taught us that we shouldn’t, either. So let’s move past our inclination to judge people and just love them instead.
To your fitness!