JUDGING OTHERS

The other day I heard two older women talking about things they have seen that morning. The first one told a story about how she was walking down the street and saw a man dressed in filthy clothes sitting on a door stoop. His hair was a mass of knots and dirt and he smelled so bad she thought about crossing the street. She hurried her step, ignoring the cup he held out.

“I know he wanted me to give him money,” she said in disgust. “Imagine, too lazy to work and so disgusting he probably couldn’t have gotten a job doing anything except maybe working at a sewer plant.”

“I went to Walmart the other day,” her friend told her. “You should have seen the woman standing in line in front of me.”

She went on to tell that the woman wore a part of shorts that shouldn’t have even been called shorts. She said the woman looked more like she was wearing a bathing suit.

“I turned to the woman behind me and asked her what she thought,” the elderly woman continued her tale. “She didn’t know what I meant until I motioned to the woman dressed in such a disgusting way. The woman behind me just rolled her eyes, agreeing with me that it was totally out of place to dress like that in public.”

The Bible says that we should Judge not lest you be judged. It continues to say, For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Thinking of that verse from Matthew 7, I pictured those women sitting on a scale. They sat on one side and after each thing they said, a counter-weight was removed from the opposite scale. As they dropped lower and lower, my thoughts suddenly changed.

Suddenly I was the person on the scale. Though I try very hard not to, at times I think or say unkind things about people. I couldn’t help but think of all the times I’d judged other people by their looks., the more I thought about this the more counter-weights were removed, until finally I touched bottom, like a child on a seesaw with no one on the other side.

Then I watched as the scene changed. I was on the scale and Jesus climbed into the other side. Not only was I equal with him, I was raised higher and higher until I realized I was getting closer to God’s Kingdom.

So, it is with the case of the two women. It is also the case for the unfortunate people they were talking about.

We all have the chance to balance our scales because of Jesus. And because of Him we have the chance to rise higher and higher until we are raised to His Heavenly Kingdom.