Saturday 28 July 2007

Judge not according to the appearance

“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” - John 7v24

For a good part of my Christian life I had (and still have at times) a major spiritual problem. I tended to judge people by what I saw when I met or saw them. I judged people by the clothes they wore, the music they listened to, the way they cut their hair, the church they went to, or any number of other things. When we do this of course it gives us a preconceived bias the colours the rest of our relationship. It is a destructive practice.

What does Jesus say? He simply tells is not to judge that way. Does that mean we never make a spiritual judgement? Does that mean we take an “anything goes” attitude? No, but it does mean that we make discernment based on the word of God alone. Even then we need to make righteous judgements, based on what is right, not on our personal preferences or our biases.

Let’s be careful that we judge others not by what we see, but by what God’s word says.

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