Thinkable: Judgment or discernment?

I’ll bet most of you have felt the judgment of another, and can still recall it. How did that feel, and how long did it take you to recover from it? I tell my children that not only does judgment hurt people on “both sides of the fence,” but it also doesn’t make sense. Why? When we judge someone else’s actions we generally know less than 5% of the related information. Also we typically have not first cleaned up our own issues before pointing out someone else’s faults. For example the Bible speaks against our hypocrisy of skipping over judgment of our own issues in order to judge another’s faults, stating that the kind of judgment we practice will come back home for us to experience. So, we point with our index finger, and the next 3 fingers point back to us. In addition unforgiveness mainly hurts the “unforgiver.” Judgment of all mankind is assigned by God the Father to His Son Jesus. He is superbly qualified since He sees right beyond our externals into our hearts, and He knows His own who have unashamedly owned Him. Therefore we should NOT usurp His role, but we are instead urged to judge ourselves first. That not only helps our vision, but it also softens our tendency to be hard on others, while overlooking our own issues.

But God’s instructions to His own do require that we be discerning. Why? Discernment is necessary to avoid following counterfeit leadership and to help restore a wandering brother.

Now comes the rub. Many things can be abused, including discernment. For example, a Christ-follower can judge another and deceptively call it discernment, thereby giving His Master a bad name. This is especially likely when this is claimed to merely be the exercising of a “spiritual gift of discernment.” The answer to this is fairly simple; all spiritual gifts come from God and are invalid or bogus unless they fulfill their purpose of brining glory to God. But judging a brother (instead of helping or serving him) does NOT glorify God. Why? God opposes things like prideful use of His gifts, judgment, gossip, or criticism (rather than helping, building up, and restoring a brother). When we “try on Jesus’ glasses” we can see people as He did and not hang up on their past mistakes, but instead see what they can become by trusting Him to transform them into His likeness.

Some time back I personally came to the realization that I can either judge people or serve people, but not both. My choice is to serve people in a loving, truthful, and discerning manner, submitting to the leadership and correction of the Holy Spirit for my own self. Count me in for serving and discernment, but judgment only of myself. How about you?