Command 15 : Judge Not | Day 101

Turn Judging Into a Mirror!

I enjoy telling the story of a day when, as a young boy, I walked into our kitchen and caught an older sister in the act of eating a cookie. I exclaimed, "You know those cookies are for dessert tonight!" She looked at me with a surprised, guilty expression. This gave me great satisfaction because usually she was the one catching me in the act of doing something wrong!

As I surveyed the "scene of the crime" I noticed that she had also poured a glass of milk. So I said with uncharacteristic confidence, "That is your second cookie, isn't it!" She looked at me with amazement and asked, "How did you know?" I replied, "The first cookie made you thirsty."

She marveled at her little brother's "wisdom." However, there was nothing to marvel about. I knew what she had done because I had done the very same thing the day before!

We have an amazing ability to detect and react to faults in others that we have not yet corrected in ourselves.

Paul affirms the fact that we judge in others the things of which we are guilty ourselves. “Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest [krino]: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things ... . And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?” (Romans 2:1-3).

The things to which Paul refers are terrible sins: “all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents ...” (Romans 1:29-31).

The reticular activating system is the part of the brain that determines what gets our attention. When I was a teenager, I was not able to identify the specific makes of cars. They all looked similar to me until I considered buying a Plymouth. Thereafter, my reticular activating system directed my attention to every Plymouth in sight. In the same way, when we are guilty of an action, our sensitivity to it increases, and we are more likely to notice this action in others. That is why it is especially important to search our own hearts when tempted to judge another person.

David overreacted in judging a man who had stolen a lamb because he had committed the same root sin.

James warns us about looking into a mirror but failing to correct the faults we see. “If any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:23-25). The next time we are tempted to judge another person, let's get out the mirror of God's Word and look at ourselves for the faults that we have noticed in someone else.