Do Not Judge

Matthew 7:1-5

Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

 “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.

I’m sure all of you have heard these verses many times and possibly have even used them.  They were brought to my mind over the past couple of weeks as I have dealt with a couple of deaths of two people that not everyone would quickly point to as strong Christians.  The one person was a very giving person however I don’t know where her heart was with God.  I wasn’t all that close to her, she was a friend of a couple of my siblings.  I do pray that she was right with God.

The second person a lot of people spent a lot of time judging and I would be guilty of judging him at times as well.  He was my grandfather.  He spent most of my life in prison.  He made some very poor choices in life and paid for those mistakes.  Yet he also did a lot of good in life and his mistakes made people forget about all of the good he did.  He served in the Korean War, was even honored with the Purple Heart for being wounded twice.  After serving his time in prison, he would continue to be judged for the rest of his life by many who knew about what he had done. 

On May 5, 2002, he was baptized and gave his life to Christ.  He spent the rest of his years living for God and doing his best to be a Godly man. 

We all sin.  It is not our place to decide what sin is greater than another.  Today, let’s each focus on what it is that we need to work on to be less hypocritical.