We obviously instinctively believe we understand this verse, so we fail to look any deeper. But have we missed something? Do we understand what the verse is saying? A logical but twisted offshoot of the popular interpretation of this verse can be found in in many prison tattoos as unrepentant, at least pretending not to be sorry for their life and the things that they've done, men proudly strut through cell blocks sporting ink that declares Only God Can Judge Me. But in the attitude is some vague sense of a philosophy that seems to say that God understands why I am the way I am and if you only knew you'd understand too. But no. God does indeed understand, better than we do, what happened to us, in us and around us, but that doesn't mean that everyone or anyone gets a pass because life is hard. God doesn't grade on the curve. It's pass fail, and only perfect passes, no excuses and no exceptions.
Hey, I'm starting to get uncomfortable. What's this have to do with recovery? I don't blame you for being uncomfortable. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about the judgment of God if I don't also remember His mercy and His great love. In the beginning of God's love story about Him and humanity He declared that two people joined together in marriage would become unified, one. That is not just metaphor, but truly something awesome, wonderful and special that happens as our souls are intertwined and union is made spiritually even as our bodies are joined sexually. And one of the three most common ways our relationship with Jesus is described is that of bride and groom. The relationship was consummated on the cross as Jesus spread His arms to embrace us, His bride, and gave everything He is for us, holding nothing back. When we accept that love and return His embrace, we become His, and He ours. We become one with Jesus.
Now when God judges us, and He will judge each and every one of us, He see the perfect love of Jesus that fulfilled the law instead of our failure to love Him and love others as we should. We are one with Jesus, so the rich rightness of Jesus is more than enough to cover our moral and spiritual bankruptcy, We don't have to be afraid of God's judgment, but if we ever even think of standing on our own merits, we should fear it greatly, because to be judged by every person in the world is nothing compared to being judged by God.
The thing is, this verse telling us not to judge was not, and was never intended to be, a verse that declared that no one should look at anything as wrong. It was not about judging, despite the word used, as much as it was about understanding the truth of our own situation, the truth about who God is, and not being hypocrites. It's not logical to think that the verse ever meant not to judge if something was good or bad when it is immediately followed b the plankeye parable. What's the plankeye parable? That's where Jesus tells us not to be so focused on the splinter in someone else's eye that we miss the plank or beam in our own eye. We are told to first remove the plank from our own life so that we can then see to remove the splinter from our brother's eye.
This is often used like a shield in the same way as the judging verse, as in don't pretend you're perfect, when you become perfect you can talk to me about my issues. And that's not quite it either. And this is important, because this is where it becomes practical and about recovery, recovery from being the hopeless defendant standing before a righteous judge, recovery from being one of the sick, broken and slave to the curse to being healed, restored and set free, recovery from a slave to sin and addiction to a free child of God.
Judgment is looking at the standard. We see the failure to meet the standard in others and pounce. It's easy to do. In some cases it as easy as breathing. You could, for example, take either Hillary Clinton or President Trump because you could take them both, and see that they have become the targets of many because they are in the public eye and because they step up to declare themselves leaders of others. It became a national past time to bash one or both of them, because they obviously fail to measure up in some area or another. That's a large example, but what about that that person we come across in some situation and we decide that they're not making progress or not making progress as quickly as they should. We determine they're not growing in their relationship with God, or they're not growing in such a way that would make their life so much better and make them less miserable. Or what about that person who comes into our presence reeking of the bondage that rules their life as we look at them and declare ourselves grateful that we are no longer in bondage as they are.
Our judgment of others, our scathing contempt for those who fail, our haughty evaluation of another's journey and our self righteous elevation of our recovery over the one still failing all come from the same place, an innate fear of the truth we know deep down. There is a standard. Deny it, try to philosophize it away, try to justify and excuse all we want, there is a right and wrong. There is prefect love and there is evil and there is in all of us at least enough evil to prevent us from loving perfectly. None of us are meeting the standard, even today, regardless of what spiritual progress may have been made. No matter how much cleaner we are than the next guy, we will never be clean enough.
When we remember the standard, we know, if we are honest with ourselves, that we have not met the standard, we never have and we never will because we can't. So we justify and excuse and shift the blame. But if you only knew what I'd been through, if you only understood that it's their fault. We try to make ourselves feel better or superior by comparing ourselves to someone else, or we hate and attack what we see in ourselves, a failure to meet the standard. I hate that I can't measure up, but I don't want to hate myself, so I'll hate you and stone you to death instead.
But if we remember the great love and perfectness of our groom is what saves us from judgment and not anything that we are able to do, when we recognize the truth that we too deserve to be declared unworthy and unrighteous but have been cleansed and raised up by grace and made fit to be a bride, then we can love others with that same grace, mercy and love. It doesn't mean we don't say something is right that is clearly wrong, it means that we remember that we have been forgiven and what made it possible for us to stand before the judge unashamed and unafraid and that we share that with those who need it rather than attacking and trying to kill the crippled and weak. It means we love and pray for them and then, by grace and with love, when the opportunity arises, take them to meet the groom so that they can be made clean and whole and free as well. It means we remember and admit that we are as much fallen short as they are but have found the solution. It's not hypocritical judgment to say I was a slave, much the same that you're a slave, but I found freedom, let me show you the solution because what you are doing to try to distract yourself from not being enough is never going to work.
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