Judgement

Day 3 was another “hit you in the face” day! It was on judgment. Beth points out that “if we are going to become vessels of God’s patience toward others, we must also learn to be void of judgment toward others.” This reminded me of the recent school shootings in the Amish school. The news went crazy over the fact that the Amish were forgiving the man who killed their children and were there to support his widowed wife. What an awesome testimony of God’s love towards others.
Some of the reasons she listed as to why we should not judge that stuck out to me are: (Rom. 2;1-5)
- when we judge others we cause God to be harder on us
- we do many of the same things we condemn in others (I’ve been in this position before)
- we do not know the whole truth
(Matt. 7:1-5)
-we risk applications of the same type of judgment to ourselves-we can not judge the speck of sawdust in another’s eye because of the plank in our own.

The final thing that stuck out to me was “how patient must we be toward others with whom we share the same sin. Judgment strangles patience and grieves the Holy Spirit.”
I never put judgment into this perspective. Often times I have been so quick to judge others when it was never my place to judge. Beth’s final thought for this lesson was to petition God for an extreme awareness of judgment. For an immediate sense of conviction over the sin of judgment and our tendency to condemn. We have no idea how deeply imbedded this sin may be in each of us until we invite Him to expose it.” What a challenge. A difficult one at that being that it’s a “refining” challenge but once you’re through it you’ll shine!