Sunday Reading: Matthew 7 1-5
Key Verse: Matthew 7 1
1 Judge not, that you may not be judged.
Devotion:
This is one verse that has troubled me many a time because I know what sort of state I was in before I came to know Christ. I also know what sort of state I let myself into after knowing Christ. I also know that He is Just and Merciful to show His unending love for me that through this I may be forgiven for what I have done wrong by bringing those things before Him. Christ is able to judge us because He is pure and without sin. We should not be able to judge others because we ourselves are sinners, some more than others; but that should not stop us from upholding God’s Law!
Just because we have done things wrong in the past we should not be excluded from doing things right. Just because we have made mistakes in the past this should not exclude us from living for Christ! Part of living For Christ is that we should uphold His Law and uphold His Ways. If I can now live for Him instead of living for this world, then I shall be able to uphold His law as well. This does not mean that I will be able to do everything right from now on, but it does stand me in good stead if I am willing to rely on Christ to lead me through life instead of plodding on without regard for Him.
God gave us His Word so that we would understand it properly. That means that we do have to study it to find out what it really does say. Too often we sit back and allow other people to gently prod us now and again with a nice saying or a nice word from our bibles but do not bother to dig deeper into God’s Word to find out what it really says. When Christ said that we must not judge each other He was saying that we should not rebuke others for things that we ourselves get up to – that is hypocritical! Christ can rebuke us because He has not been there! If we are strong enough to stand up to doing what God requires of us, then should we not be strong enough to stand up and tell others that they are not doing the same. Is that judging? No, that is showing someone else you love them enough to point out their mistakes and so long as we are not doing the same or worse, we are doing God’s Will!
This does not give us “carte blanche” to go out and tell others off for doing all manner of things wrong. It gives us the right to uphold God’s Word and His ways. Now, if only I can do that as eloquently as others have shown me, I should be ok!
Points to Ponder:
Are you doing your best?
Are you doing God’s will?