Let’s do a Selfie…Judgment

Let’s do a Selfie…Judgment.  Matthew 7.3-5

Imagine holding the magnifying glass of Inspector Clouseau with a long enough arm that you could look carefully at yourself—your thoughts, your words, your actions.  How would you look? 

Seriously, stop and think for a bit—perhaps you are able to control your tongue for the most part, but how about your thoughts?  Do you ever think about things you would be ashamed of, should someone capture your thoughts and project them on a wall for all to see?  Yikes.  Now don’t be deceived into thinking that it has to be the ‘big’ things that would not show well. 

How about thoughts of~

  ~fear, oft when no one apparently sees or knows?  I have been working with someone recently whose thoughts of fear claw at her throat in a strangling manner, in such a way that she could drive the very love that she craves right out of her life!  Don’t     you see-- fear is not of God, and robs us of love and joy?  ‘There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.¹’

 Whereas Paul wrote that ‘God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.’²  But

 somehow we do not equate fear-filled thoughts with sin—when they are--for it means our faith is small, rendering our God

 weak and anemic.

~pride, when it does not take a rocket scientist to know that it was pride that prompted the first sin,³ and allows us to rationalize choosing our own way over God’s to sin again…⁴ when we can sit and think, ‘Wow, look what I’ve done, look what I’ve amassed, look at this deal I just brought in!’  All good, but it is ‘in him we live and move and have our being.’⁵  Do you not see that?  In fact, Jesus put such a premium on humility that he said we would have to become as children to enter his kingdom.⁶

How about thoughts of~

~worry, when Scripture clearly commands, via the words of Paul, that we are not to worry⁷, and from the lips of our Lord, ‘we are not to be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow has cares enough of its own.’⁸

~guilt, when Paul said, ‘There is no condemnation under Jesus’!⁹  Yet how many labor under the load of what they have done in the past?

You get the idea.  We look at others and wish we had their lives, or possibly their wives!  Our thoughts run away with who we think we are, who we are meant to be, who we are meant to become!  We find ourselves regularly discontent when Paul set the beautiful standard of contentment.¹⁰

Here’s the thing—with regard to judgment, we must begin with ourselves.  Indeed, judgment must start at home; literally, at home with us individually.  For Jesus said,

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”¹¹

If indeed I start at home, if indeed I start by judging myself, then there will not be much time left to judge others!  Wow, now this is a lot to think about, a lot to consider giving up—most especially, making judgments about other people.

By the way, if you made a judgment about me and why you have had some sporadic Morning Briefings of late, I am in the process of setting up an e-mail service as the distribution is too large to send it as it has been.  Thank you, Jesus, for the growth, and please friends, give me grace!