I used to tell my children that when they pointed a finger at anyone else, there were four fingers pointing back at them. I still use this little reminder for myself when I am tempted to pass judgment. Although not literally pointing my finger, my thoughts often line up in accusing formation ready to bombard an unsuspecting target. I was heading down the highway as I pondered this article, and there could not have been a better setting. I was in the laboratory that proved the prevalence of my tendency to judge! Many are the drivers who do not come up to my expectations and whom I summarily dismiss to the ranks of the condemned. That they do not measure up to Highway Code or safety standards either is, unfortunately, not within my jurisdiction.

In the current geo-political climate where liberals and conservatives cavil and criticize to the level of a national pastime, it is evident that we live in a world deeply polarized and where passing judgment is the currency in which we trade. On the macro level, it is accepted as normal and that acceptance bleeds over into the micro level of our private worlds, even our Christian lives. That is the world I want to examine in this article.

I often toy with the idea of writing a series of articles on the most ignored sayings of Jesus. One of them is apropos to this article. Judge not, that ye be not judged (Matt. 7:1). Although we are New Creations under grace and no longer debtors to the law, there is no exception clause that lets us off the hook here. Judging or not judging will never change our sonship, but will show the heart of the Father, whom we love, to the world. We, who claim to have the revelation of the indwelling Christ, are well able to refrain from reproaching our neighbor, our family or the rest of the world. Someone said the other day that coming into an awareness of our participation in the Triune life of God meant to her, “I don’t judge you and you don’t judge me!”

Many years ago, I asked the Lord to let me see people as he sees them and his response was, “Then you must love them as I love them.” Love them before I have any idea of their caliber or character? Impossible! I realized then that in my own strength I had no capability whatsoever to fulfill such a lofty command and became aware of the immensity of God’s agape love. What is more amazing is that that same love came to take up residence in our hearts at the new birth (Rom. 5:5), once more demonstrating how God never demands anything of us that he has not already supplied.

If he who knows the hair count on the head of every human, knows their direst and deliberate deeds, yet chooses to look on them in love, then who are we to dare carp and criticize? We have no idea of the path they have walked, their memories, their motivation or their fears. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “If we could read the history of our enemies we should find in each person’s life, sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” Or as Brennan Manning writes in Abba’s Child, “The heartfelt compassion that hastens forgiveness matures when we discover where our enemy cries.”

We should be exceedingly reluctant to usurp God’s omniscient role and pronounce judgment on those of whom we know nothing but the thin veneer that they present either in their works or their weakness. Our job is to bring a message of reconciliation and release that is demonstrated by loving, accepting and respecting them, exactly as they are, where they are. That was got under the skin of the Pharisees who would not have been quite as resentful of Jesus associating with sinners, if only he had insisted that they change their ways first before he bestowed grace.

Psychologists tell us that the offence, irritation or impurity that we judge in another is most likely the most prominent defect in our own life. A mote and plank scenario (Matt. 7:3-5). Someone has said that we judge others by their actions, ourselves by our intentions. This is particularly obvious in dealing with children when we tell them to, “Do as I say, don’t do as I do!” An underestimation of our own weaknesses tends to make us too quick to judge another’s failures. The great Scottish bard, Robert Burns, expressed a sentiment in one of his poems that is most fitting here. In, Address to the Unco Guid (rigidly righteous) he writes, Then gently scan your brother man / Still gentler sister woman.

God is often the first conscript in our wars. When we rush into battle for our noble causes fully convinced that we are justified to win no matter the cost, it comes as a rough reality check to discover that God is not our side in any such expedition. The more passionate we feel about our cause, no matter how legitimate, the more querulous we are inclined to be. Hear the words of Brennan Manning again from his beautiful book, Abba’s Child. “The way of tenderness avoids blind fanaticism. Instead, it seeks to see with penetrating clarity. The compassion of God in our hearts opens our eyes to the unique worth of each person.” All to often we rush in and destroy the object of our quest. Witness the carnage and detritus of humanity in the wake of religious zeal throughout the centuries.

A popular quip in some religious circles—no doubt in an attempt to ameliorate the disapproval—states that we “love the sinner but hate the sin.” As if there is any other requirement than to love the sinner. In a recent discussion group, our guest was a formerhomosexual testifying to a changed lifestyle. He recalled with a shiver the tagging onof the “hating the sin” phrase that made him feel distanced, devalued and not even loved without major conditions attached. All people are included in the Trinitarian life of God. All are included—not all have come to see that this is so.

We exemplify the god we believe in. If he is a harsh, punitive, censorious deity then that is how we will treat our fellow man. However, if we have had a revelation of the largesse of our liberal, loving Father God, then there is no rift so wide that love cannot bridge the gap. Passing judgment presents in various guises: gossiping, grudging, disapproving, excluding, condemning, resenting and punishing. These attitudes have their roots in the soil of the deception laid in the Garden. The false promise that we would be as gods still dogs our unrenewed minds. The fear we inherited from our disenfranchised parents, Adam and Eve, continues to fuel our fiery disapproval and dissension. We are deluded into thinking that we must police the world, forgetting that God is the final judge at the end of the day. Jesus demonstrated his trust in that eventuality where it is written of him that, “When he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously” (1 Pet. 2:23).

Adopting a non-judgmental posture does not mean that we do not recognize, grieve and become outraged at injustice. When Jesus was angry it was always because of inequities, injustices and assault on the greater good, never because of a bruised ego. Love is the sole antidote to every grievance. It is not love that loves only the lovable, but it is true love that embraces, without judgment, the ugliest of all—especially those who have done us wrong. The dear Dutch saint, Corrie ten Boom, told the tale of having but moments to decide whether to hold onto resentment towards her former jailor when she met him years after her internment in a Nazi concentration camp. She chose to hold out her hand to greet him, though she still saw the face of her little sister who had perished in that camp at his command.

When we see with our Father’s eyes, we will relinquish our grasp on temporary, earthly grudges and release them to the wide, expansive, eternal terrain of his perspective. This is because we are persuaded that he is working everywhere, in everyone, using everything to bring his beloved world into the circle of fellowship with the Father, Son and the Spirit. Then, instead of accusing fingers finding fault, we will point to Calvary; in place of alienating exploits, our actions will attract others to the fragrance of Christ within, and rather than excluding and shunning, our arms will embrace both the penitent and the prodigal alike for we cannot judge and love at the same time.