Judgment part 1
All I want to do for the next few days is talk about John 7:24. I think this is a criminally under-preached Bible verse. Because what we seem to tend to think of when we think about judgment is Matthew 7:1. So let's look at that first. "Judge not, that ye be not judged." And, right of the bat, let's just see that Jesus didn't say, "Don't judge." Because, let's be honest, we make judgments just about every second of every day. We judge things to be true or false. Good or bad. In our benefit, or not. What Jesus said was, according to the Amplified Bible, "DO NOT judge and criticize and condemn others, so that you may not be judged and criticized and condemned yourselves." Or, in the Message Bible, "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults--unless, of course, you want the same treatment." He was basically telling us, "You get what you give." He wasn't saying don't judge. He was saying, "Be careful HOW you judge." Which is what He went on to say in my memory verse for this Rant series. John 7:24, "Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment." Again, telling us HOW to judge, not telling us not TO judge. Look at 1 Corinthians 6:2-3, "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?" We ARE judges. We DO make judgments all the time. That's not the issue. That's not in question. The key is, again, HOW you judge. The key is to not judge by appearance. Because appearances can be deceiving. I've found that even when you're smack in the middle of the story... you usually don't know the WHOLE story. There are at least two sides to every story, right? And just because you can't see it a certain way doesn't mean you're right and they're wrong. And it doesn't mean you need to "be" right by "making" them wrong. Remember? Its better to have the right word--the kind word... love--than the last word. Relationship is more important than winning an argument, I'm telling you. So don't judge by appearance. Things aren't always what they seem. One of the seven habits of succesful people is to, "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." But, unfortunately, that can take a bit of effort. And people aren't always ready, willing, or able to put the effort in. Its easier to make a snap judgment and call it a day. There's a song lyric that says, "I can't tell you what it really is, I can only tell you what it looks like." And that's how we do it. We just take a quick glace at the surface and go from there. When what we ought to be doing--if Jesus did, in fact, know what He was talking about--is judging righteous judgment. Which we're really going to get into tomorrow. But to whet your appetite, it has a lot to do with Psalm 149:9, "To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour heave all his saints. Praise ye the LORD." Its our honor to EXECUTE the judgment that was given. The righteous judgment. On the cross. When God judged His only begotten Son to be worthy of LIFE. And Him in us. And us in Him!