To Encourage You

Romans 2:1 “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.”

Does it ever bother you that so much of what we see on social media is people making sweeping generalizations to condemn the actions of others? It strikes me as such an incredible lack of self-awareness.  It just seems that if the critical eyes that are being used by some people to look at others were turned inward, the heated rhetoric that is so common would likely cool way down. 

I’m reminded of Jesus’ words to the scribes and Pharisees who had just dragged a woman guilty of adultery before Him seeking His approval to stone her.  Jesus’ response?  “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”  He was telling them to look at themselves first and foremost – and when they did, they were forced by their own guilty consciences to drop their stones and walk away.  And while we may not be casting physical stones at one another, the verbal volleys can be just as harmful and borne from the same kind of a lack of awareness of our own sin.

As the verse above from Romans 2 tells us, anyone who claims to have such a keen sense of morality that they can feel qualified to judge someone else is perhaps more guilty of their own sin than most in that the superior knowledge they claim to have should make them more qualified than most to see it! But do they? Do we?  Are the very things we accuse others of the same ugly things that we harbor in our own hearts? Are the sins we accuse others of the very things we have been guilty of at some time in the past? 

One of our greatest self-deceptions is the deception that we are good.  Jesus told the rich man who came to Him with such a claim that, “No one is good but God alone” (Mark 10:18).  How’s that statement affect you? Do you believe it?  Or do you have a standard that is higher than Christ’s? Do you think you know yourself better than He does? 

It is the humble heart that admits its own sin. It’s the humble heart that God shows favor to.  But the proud?  It’s the greatest sin of all, for it was for that sin that Satan fell and the cancer of his sin then spread to others. 

May God help us to take the lens by which we are so quick to scrutinize others and turn it around 180 degrees to look at our own self. Better yet, may God help us to look in the mirror of His Word to see ourselves as He does.  It’s a view that will humble us like nothing else can.