Devotion #2: Give Some Grace
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is a log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7:1-5
Over and over in the Bible, the Lord calls us to love. The greatest commandment given is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36-39). In Romans 12:9-10, we are told, “Let love be genuine…Love one another with brotherly affection,” because with love comes the fulfillment of every other law and commandment that we are given (Romans 13:8).
When we love our brothers and sisters, we are showing them that no matter what they have done, the Lord has forgiven them. So, we love them just as He does, which means not seeing their sins and brokenness. We tend to jump to our own conclusions about others when we only know parts of their story, the outside view. We assume the worst of them and put a stamp on them that turns us away from furthering a relationship just because of one thing we might have heard or seen them do. Whatever scale we use to compare others with, that scale will also be used for our own judgment.
Imagine you are shopping at the grocery store and hear a mother snap at her child, and you immediately think, “Wow, she is so impatient, he was just asking for a snack. She does not seem very good with kids.” Maybe what you do not know is that the mother has been up with her child since five in the morning after only getting a few hours of sleep, and her child has been a bit extra emotional because he also did not sleep much. So, instead of her being a bad parent, the two are actually just overly tired, and any other day, they get along very well.
Jesus does not judge us based on one mistake we make; He forgives us, and we move on. Likewise, we are called to love as He does, to treat others how He did. This means putting all differences aside, not chalking someone’s personality up to one encounter you have had with them, not dwelling on things of the past, and forgiving wrongs people have done against us. When our hearts are right with the Lord when we put love first, we can then pour it into others, and judging them will no longer be our first response.