judging one another

Folks are funny, they want to claim a title or a profession or even a nationality over themselves but then they don’t want that to claim them. They want to own it but don’t want it to own them. And then … yea and then… we want to say we serve a God, but we really often don’t want to serve at all. We want His name as in His married name.. as in we are His Bride, but we don’t want to act married to Him. All too often we don’t even want to act like we know Him. I challenge you folks, do you call yourself a Christian? What exactly does that mean? Are you a believer in Christ? Do you serve Him? Do you love Him? Do you belong to Him? Are you married and faithful to Him?

Those answers may all be yes and yet the way we walk it out may be differently. Some are young in their faith, in their spiritual marriage, and there is a whole lot of grace for the young.

One of our granddaughters is just learning to stand. She thinks she can walk but she can’t and yet she doesn’t even know it. She will pull herself up and just let go! She will lean to move forward and not know how to step with that lean. She falls and stumbles quite a lot. She has bumps and bruises. She also has very loving parents who will pick her up and nurture her after every stumble. Yet if her daddy, a grown man, did all the things she does it would appear he had a very serious condition, and his family would be very concerned. If he fell and stumbled and lost his balance constantly we would all be very concerned.

So why is it, when a person who claims to have been a believer in Christ for many years falls and stumbles and has no balance whatsoever in their walk with Christ, why is that when we question that or get concerned we are accused of “judging them?” We should be concerned, we should all be very concerned, as in “I care, I AM concerned”. When a person who claims to know Christ behaves opposite of His Word, we should all be concerned enough to ask them what in the world is going on. “Why do you keep falling my friend, why do you have all those bumps and bruises?” We should reach out a hand.

Don’t be afraid of judging one anothers actions. Do it in love motivated by concern. And when folks accuse you of “judging” say, “yep, I am guilty, my bible says His Word judges, and I am acting in accordance with His Word.”  I am not better than my friends, but I have compassion, caring for my friends. I want them to learn to walk with the Lord, not stumble every other step.