DO NOT JUDGE AND YOU WILL NOT BE JUDGED

BY: SUNNY ORLY COFFMAN – YEAR 1999

Luke 6:37 "and do not judge and you will not be judged; and do not condemn and you will not be condemned; pardon and you will be pardoned. Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return."

Recently I have been on a strict discipline from the Lord. I’m writing quite a bit, but maintaining almost total silence with all except my spouse. I’ve not attempted to analyze it, but I have truly attempted to obey. I’m continually amazed how many things it has surfaced in those around me.

Yesterday, not only I, but my husband and I were publicly berated by an irate friend who chose to stop by, unannounced - just to "see if I was speaking yet." Apparently she rang the doorbell at my husband’s invitation [he was out working in the yard]. But I was in the shower. When I did not respond to her, she became livid and very accusatory and, loud enough for neighbors to easily hear, proclaimed to my husband that she did not understand us and we obviously "did not serve the same God she did and did not read the same bible she did." I was severely judged by this lady. She told my husband she knew I was "standing behind a curtain, refusing to answer the door, and listening in to what I’m speaking right now."

When I innocently came out of the shower, dressed, and came out into the front yard to check on my husband, he retold the above story to me. The lady had already left in a huff. It made me sad and I immediately thought of how the people responded to Jesus when he refused to defend himself. They even accused him of being of the devil on one occasion when he healed a blind man:

"Therefore some of the Pharisees were saying, ‘this man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath.’"

In Matthew 11, Jesus let it be known that John the Baptist was Elijah, in the spirit of Elijah, and yet he stated that people said of John "he has a demon." And he also told of how the people accused Jesus, himself of "being a drunkard, a gluttonous man...a friend of tax collectors and sinners."

It would almost make you think "if I’m not receiving some kind of ‘heat’- [criticism] as a result of my walk, I must be out of the will of God."

Jesus certainly gave us reason to believe that we would experience trials, criticisms, and even possibly punishment in this world [Luke 21:12]

"They will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name’s sake."

If He [Jesus] is the pattern Son and we are to walk as he walked, we’d better be ready to be scorned for every good thing that is done through us, allowed to go through all kinds of trials for our perfecting, denied by those that are closest to us [Luke 21:57]

"But he [Peter] denied it, saying, ‘woman, I do not know Him."

Even those of our own household [Luke 21:16]:

"But you will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death."

In 2 Cor. 2:4 Paul said, "for out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears." He was shedding tears as a result of the love he felt for the church at Corinth.

Isaiah 48:10 says we will be tested by the Lord in the furnace of affliction.

It was only as Paul became more like Jesus that he experienced the real persecution of imprisonment, the criticism of the Roman Empire, but his real pain came from the love he had for the people of God and his concern that they stay faithful to God.

 

 

God birthed a prayer in me quite a long time ago. He continues to pray through me that "truth be revealed in every area of my life." I see a great separating going on for the moment. It is like He is removing, perhaps only for a season, all of the people from my life that have or still are causing me pain. Perhaps this is for my own healing to come forth... a deeper healing than I have, thus far, experienced.

All I feel is great pain that many are still busy trying to get the speck out of their friend’s eye instead of doing their own eye inspection and removing their beam - that still causes blindness.

But I find joy in knowing that God is no respecter of persons and His desire is that all will be saved to the uttermost. So, He is not finished with His work of restoration in any of us and He will continue to do whatever is necessary to fill us completely with Himself until there is no room for anything but His abiding love.

 

 

 

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