Christians do judge, and should judge, but they should do so righteously (John 7:24), which means to judge fairly according to the word of God. The righteous God has pronounced certain judgments on certain things, and we are to think God’s thoughts after Him.
That means whatever God thinks of a certain thing, we follow suit, and think the same thing about it. What God calls sin, I call sin. What God calls foolish, I call foolish. It’s His universe, His rules, His definitions, and who am I to say otherwise?
Judging righteously is not a suggestion, it is a command. Judging righteously presupposes that we will be doing some judging. Christians aren’t supposed to be naive. God doesn’t give the gift of discernment to be neglected and hidden.
Judgment is the soul of wisdom. Take judgment out of the equation, and there is no such thing as wisdom. How can we be ‘wise as serpents’ without judging?
As people who have been born again by grace, because of Jesus Christ, we are to always be eager to be merciful and gracious, just like He is, in our judgment. We are to always initially assume and hope for the best until we are clearly shown otherwise.
We are to understand and remember the difference between stumbling and living an entire life in unrepentant sin. A person living an entire life of unrepentant sin is not stumbling. A person must be walking in an upright manner in the overall course of his life in order to stumble or fall.
We must treat our brothers and sisters as people whom God is going to complete His good work in. And when we see them in that light, we will be more eager to be a sanctifying and gracious instrument God uses in accomplishing that. We won’t be so harsh and overbearing, adding on burden to burden.
This content belongs to Joshua Arnold
and has been re-purposed with his permission.