Careful how you judge

What do you think about this dress? The question came from my wife Morag as she was trying on a dress delivered from an online purchase. Alarm bells rang as I sensed that I was on the edge of dangerous ground and about to be drawn into expressing a judgement which, whilst honest, may not be helpful. In the past opinions innocently expressed on clothes had not necessarily been an encouragement. On a burst of inspiration, I responded with ‘do you need another dress?’ The immediate response with a smile was - ‘that is a question that you should never ask’!  Clearly, I had been judging the necessity of her purchase. Of course, I never make unnecessary purchases, the new tyre for my motorbike was necessary … but is the motorbike necessary?
 
Jesus said in Matthew 7:5 "first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
 
It is so easy to judge others more severely than oneself. We will judge through our own filters, prejudiced by past wounds, yet will allow for ourselves the mitigating circumstances that drive our own behaviour and decisions.
 
We are taught in Luke 6:37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned."
 
We are not appointed to judge others by our opinion … we are only commanded to love the image of God in our fellow pilgrim.
 
There is justice, but God has delegated necessary judgement to His Son our Saviour (John 5:22). As judge who has lived here on earth, He can identify with our circumstances without being tainted with our attitudes and jealousies.
 
Let’s try to leave the judgement of others to Him, so we can focus on assessing our own actions.

Photo by Will on Unsplash