Tag: judging others

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Hypocrisy

One of my favorite quotes that I memorized as a teen was from a DC Talk album:
“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians… who acknowledge Jesus with their lips… and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” –Brennan Manning

Even if an unbelieving world doesn’t believe in God, they know that the God we claim to follow tells us to consistently live out His teachings. And part of living out those teachings is loving others.

Instead of loving people and speaking the truth in love to them in hopes of them changing toward more God-honoring behaviors, many Christians instead choose to judgmentally condemn others. We are told that we can view peoples’ behaviors in order to judge how to win them to the Lord in love. But we are not told to be harshly condemning of people, pointing our fingers at them as if to say “shame, shame, shame.”
Pointing finger
Passages such as “Do not judge so that you will not be judged” aren’t about us accepting peoples’ ungodliness as OK, but rather they are about the issue that God’s problem with our judging is that we not only judge right from wrong, we then stand in judgmental condemnation.

Too often we condemn while we hold onto our own similarly ungodly behaviors. This is called hypocrisy.
Some examples:
We condemn murder, while we hold onto hate;
We condemn those who won’t forgive us, while we are still angry with others;
We condemn adultery, while we are filled with lustful thoughts;
We condemn liars, while we hold back the truth to benefit us;
We condemn greed, while we are not generous;
We condemn criminals, while we find little ways to break the law (such as speeding);
We condemn those who gossip, while we talk about them behind their backs.

We condemn ungodly behaviors, while refusing to see how ungodly we are in the same areas.

What we are doing is standing in judgmental condemnation of others, rather than trying to win people for Jesus through an attitude of loving reconciliation.

We are all sinners. We cannot stand before God on our merits. Therefore we are not to condemn others for being in the same boat as us. Instead we are to use our wisdom and compassion to judge only with an eye toward loving reconciliation… to help others get on track (or back on track) with God.

God says that He does not take pleasure in the death of an evil person, but that every person who is doing evil should turn toward Him and find life. Do we have the same attitude of compassion as God?

There will be a day of judgment. And God will be the One to preside. My hope is that I will have fulfilled my role of pointing more people to life in Him through loving reconciliation on that day.

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Killing Hypocrisy To Bring Honor To God

I see a lot of people growing in a lot of ways – financially, successfully in the business world, in their status and power, but the question is – are you growing in the Lord?

After writing a few things about hypocrisy, I came across this passage during my morning prayer and Bible reading time – Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things (Romans 2:1). Jesus is telling us to avoid the “do as I say, not as I do” lifestyle and words.

Just like the people of Jesus’ day, many of us might say – I would never be hypocritical. And yet:
We condemn murderers; while we still hold onto hate & anger.
We condemn adulterers; while we allow our eyes to wander and provide us with lustful thoughts.
We condemn liars; though we are not fully truthful with many others, including our spouses/kids.
We condemn the greedy; but we are not giving a minimum of 10% of our income to the Lord.
We condemn those who talk about us behind our backs by gossiping about them to others.
We condemn law breakers and criminals; while we ourselves pick and choose which laws we will follow (such as disobeying traffic laws and speed limits; violating copyright laws for illegal music and movies; finding ways to get around tax laws; etc.)
We complain about those who aren’t as “good” as us morally or who are not as religious as us; yet we are not spending any significant time with God in prayer or reading His Word.
We complain about how church leaders & other members are serving; though we are not willing to roll up our sleeves and serve.
We hear what church leaders are saying to us; but we still aren’t telling others about God and His gospel.

And because of all this, we stand in judgmental condemnation (which Jesus condemns), rather than loving reconciliation (which Jesus desires). And though you probably don’t do all of these things, maybe you see one or two in that list above that describes some habit you need to remove from your life.

Paul tells us the problem is this – “you, therefore…who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? … You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? For “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written (Romans 2:21-24).

So the problem with hypocrisy in Christians is that those who don’t know the Lord will see such inconsistency in our lives, that they will not hold God in high esteem. This is why it is important that we change these patterns. Instead of His Name being blasphemed, we need His name to be honored because of us. So Jesus tells us to . . . let your light shine before others in such a way that they see your good deeds and glorify your Heavenly Father because of your consistent, honest, moral lifestyle.

Let’s be willing to look inward, to be honest with ourselves, and to root out any inconsistency and hypocrisy that might be in our lives. We need to work on killing hypocrisy – making sure our lives bring honor and praise to the name of God in all that we say and do.

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Christian Living

Integrity Means Letting Your Yes Be Yes

I have enjoyed my blogging experience thus far. As much as anything, writing helps me process my thoughts and learn to be a better communicator. And I was working on a few different posts, but I couldn’t seem to pull any together for a fully cohesive post. So at the end of last week, I just posted a short snippet from one I had been working on. When I started posting to facebook and blogging a few months ago, I did this pretty often. But then it seems that I forgot how!

Because I do enjoy getting more complete thoughts put together before posting, I found myself not able to post as often… making my postings sporadic. So I’m planning to send out more snippets and brief thoughts in the future to keep my posting more regular. And I think that may be better anyway! Even in our own experience of wanting to change the conversations, maybe we shouldn’t worry so much about saying something exactly right as much as we should just go ahead and speak about Him and let our “snippets” have great impact over time.

So here is a brief thought on us having integrity, character, and consistency. Jesus tells us to be people of honesty and consistency. That our ‘yes’ should mean ‘yes’ and that our ‘no’ should mean ‘no.’ That our integrity should be at the highest level. But a problem exists for many of us. We have fallen into the trap, that it is OK to be inconsistent, as long as it benefits us. And that leads to our misunderstanding of God’s word, to our misapplying God’s truth, and down the path toward hypocritical attitudes and beliefs.

For example, due to our lack of consistently living out the Bible, we have reversed a proper understanding of the “do not judge” passages in the Bible. A problem our neighbors and co-workers can have with Christians, is our harsh judgment toward others. Jesus had harsh judgment for only one group – the rigid religious leaders who had no compassion for others. But for those who were sinners without any real relationship to God, Jesus held out compassion and love, hoping to move them closer to God.

hammerGod calls us to “judge” the habitually sinful behavior of our fellow Christian brothers and sisters. He tells us to do this so that we can sharpen one another and hold each other accountable. But God tells us to hold out love to those without faith to help them desire to come into our loving family. Our problem is that we flip these two and get them reversed.

And so not only do we judge the wrong group… too often, we not only want to judge, we want to condemn.
Are you swinging the hammer of condemnation toward those who need love?
Are you staying silent toward your fellow Christian brothers and sisters who need you to keep sharpening them?
Let’s flip it back to the biblical model, the model of Jesus!

Sharpen your Christian family with love, leading them toward more God-honoring behavior..
Hold out compassion and love to all others, leading them toward the kindness and salvation of God.
And don’t get the two mixed up!

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Judging the Wrong Thing

Yesterday I made the crazy argument that we actually should be judging the behavior of a sign that says 'don't even think of parking here' symbolizing our judging of othersChristians (which we often don’t do) and that we shouldn’t be attacking the behavior of unbelievers (which we often find ourselves doing). How can that be right? Well, let’s take a quick look at a few verses at the end of 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul tells us:

When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that. I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people. It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. God will judge those on the outside….

What? That’s in the Bible? Yep, God tells us in several places that we are to hold each other accountable as believers. We often don’t do this. One important point about this – it is to be done in love. And so often, when we actually do decide to hold someone accountable it is not done so in love, rather it is done in condemnation and arrogant pride. How is this possible when we are to be known as people who love each other as family and who should be quick to invite others into the love of our family?

So what we find is that instead of following the words of God, instead of holding each other accountable in love, we are becoming known as those who attack unbelievers. When Christian researchers at the Barna Group asked young adults in America what words best describe Christianity, the #1 response was “anti-homosexual.” And this was true of both non-Christians and church attenders. That blows me away – that if you ask a young adult in America to define Christianity, the definition you will likely get is a negative statement of what we are against, instead of what we are for. We seem to have strayed a long way from our model, Jesus. He wasn’t known as a hater of immoral people. In fact, He was attacked by the religious groups for being a friend of sinners! What happened that we are no longer called that?

Dr. Russell Moore indicates (regarding this one societal issue) – “I think it’s not so much that churches haven’t wanted to talk about it,” he said, “but they haven’t recognized how much the culture has changed around them.” The first step, said Moore, is learning to defend traditional marriage without demonizing homosexuals. “If we can’t empathize with what’s going on in their hearts and minds, we’re not going to be able to love and respect them.”

Dr. Moore’s statement just sheds light on the fact that many Christians do not hold out love to those who do not hold to Christian morality. By taking this stance, we are keeping people from ever coming to Christ and from the possibility of being transformed to have Christian morality.

So yes, we find non-Christians doing whatever they think is right in their own eyes. But instead of us loving them toward Christ. We find that we are doing the same – we have decided to do what is right in our own eyes – judging non-Christians and not reaching out to those without Him in love. At some point, we desperately need to return to letting God be the One that guides us, rather than our culture and our own desires. When we do that, maybe we will find that the words that best describe us are words that tell what we are for – love, unity, compassion – rather than words that tell what we are against.

Why do you think Jesus is known for the love He had (and the things He was for), while we Christians in America today are known for the things we are against? How do we fix this?

— brian rushing

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Is Anybody Doing the Right Thing?

We find that we all want to do the right thing. But who gets to define what is right? If my freedom infringes on yours, can I still say that I am “in the right”?

In the OT book of Judges we find this statement:
“In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
Bible page
There was no king in Israel – the people didn’t have a human king to give them direction and purpose, but even worse than that… the people had rejected God as the King of their lives, their hearts, & their minds. Today we find we are in a similar situation in America. In these days, though we have a President in the Oval Office as the leader of the nation, we have (as a nation) rejected God as our spiritual King and therefore everyone does what is right in his or her own eyes.

However, our role as believers is not to determine whatever we think is right and follow it. Rather, we are to know God’s Word and accept what He says is right. And then we are to hold each other accountable to solid, faithful obedience. But as soon as we try to do so, we hear from those who call themselves believers and yet who are not following God’s Word that “you can’t judge me…. God says ‘Do not judge so that you will not be judged,’ and ‘don’t try to get the speck out of my eye when you have a log in your eye.’ So you don’t have a right to judge my behavior.”

But that is so very far from the truth. We’ve heard it so often that many of us have also started to believe it to be true. Don’t buy it! The Bible tells us that believers ARE to hold each other accountable. We are to keep each other growing and on the right path. We are to do so with love. Interestingly enough, the Bible also tells us that we aren’t to focus on attacking the ungodly behavior of non-Christians, but just to love them to the Lord.

What? We should judge each other as believers, but not judge the immorality of non-believers? That can’t be right! But that is straight from the Bible.

Here’s the deal – People shouldn’t have to clean up their lives to come to Christ, but too often that is what we want to require. We want a non-Christian to hold to Christian beliefs. But why should they? Why would they? Why are we holding to these unreasonable expectations? Instead of us judging them, we should love them and show them Christ, remembering that once upon a time, we were in the same place they were – without Christ. Once their eyes are opened to see the beauty of Christ and His love, and they begin a relationship with Him, He will begin to convict them and help them to clean up their lives.

Let’s let that soak in and tomorrow we’ll explore it just a bit more…

Why do you think that we are so unwilling to hold each other accountable as believers, yet so quick to condemn people who are not believers?

— brian rushing