How do you judge people?
May 19
John 7:21Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all astonished. 22Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a child on the Sabbath. 23Now if a child can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing the whole man on the Sabbath? 24Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment.”
As human beings we sometimes are amazing creatures. We are usually not happy when someone else is successful, probably stemming from a need to be the one who is achieving success. Generally speaking I believe that people are highly hypocritical and we usually do the things that we criticise other people for doing. in this passage in John chapter 7, we see exactly the same thing. People are criticising Jesus for healing someone on the Sabbath. How ever they are quite happy circumcise their own sons on the Sabbath day in order to fulfil the law of Moses.
Jesus seldom had a problem with sinners and those people who are missing the mark, and he usually had his biggest issues with the religious people are usually quite hypocritical. We Christians need to be different. The Bible tells us that by our fruits others will know us. We really need to be different, we need to stand out in the crowd not because of drawing attention to us, but because we have a different spirit. We need to have a spirit that is not critical but that is accepting and accepting of everyone around us, irrespective of whether they are sinners or not. We have to keep in mind that we are no better than anyone else, we have simply been saved by the grace of God.
I love what Jesus says here to the people at the end when he says stop judging by appearances, and he urges us to make proper judgments. We read (I think it is in the book of James) where the people in the church were keeping the best seats in the front row, for people who were well-dressed and well to do. On the other hand they would look down on those who came in clearly poor and clearly of low status. One of the things that Jesus emphasises many times throughout his ministry is that we must not judge others in case we are judged ourselves. We know from the Lord’s prayer that we ought to forgive others so that we ourselves may be forgiven. Jesus set the ultimate example for us and we must follow him in everything we do and say. One of the hardest things to do is to not judge by appearances. We know that Jesus and God look at our heart and not the outward appearance. The Bible tells us that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
Our heart will determine what comes out of the mouth and that will determine how close we are to God. If you want to know how close someone is to God, then all you need to do is listen to the words that come out of their mouth and that will give you a pretty good indication. My prayer is that I can sound more and more like Jesus by the words I say and buy the things that I do and that I do not judge on the outward appearance that become more Christ-like and learn to judge people for who they are.