Prayer Prompt before reading MT 7:1-5: Come, Holy Spirit, teach me how to pray, interpret the Scriptures for me so that I may know the Truth about who God the Father is and God the Son so that I may know who I am.
“STOP JUDGING, THAT YOU MAY NOT BE JUDGED.” MT 7:1-5
Humbly submit your will to God and consecrate yourself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through Mary and Joseph.
As Jesus continues to teach his disciples and us how to be a saint, judging others makes it on the list. Let’s start with ourselves. I criticize, judge, and put myself down often. I am very hard on myself. I have to fight negative thoughts often.
Next, we naturally tend to judge others right away. When we watch TV we judge, when the news comes on we judge, when our neighbor paints their house a weird color we judge, when our parents do something we judge, when a friend makes a comment we judge, if someone looks nice and we are jealous we judge, if someone beats us we judge, and the list goes on. We judge constantly, it is part of our nature and being competitive. On the other hand, we hate being judged.
So, why did Jesus call us out on this and forbid us not to do it if we know we have inherited a fallen human nature? Judging ourselves and others hurts relationships and takes away our peace of mind, peace in our homes, and peace in our communities. When we really get to know someone, we find out that they are human just like us and they are suffering like us. Padre Pio says, “We cannot criticize others, all of us have faults.” If we do not think we have as many faults as everyone else then we have the biggest fault, pride.
The biggest key point Jesus is trying to teach us is that we are all in the same boat, a fallen human nature, walk hand in hand forgiving instead of judging, understanding instead of criticizing, and take time to get to know the truth about individuals instead of judging on the surface.
I have learned that whatever I criticize in others is what I am insecure about in myself. When I criticize others I boost my ego to cover up my insecurity by putting them down. Matthew Kelly calls this “Blind Spots”. He says, everyone has an ego and we all have blind spots. The faults others see in us but we don’t see in ourselves. Interesting how this works. Take some time to think about what you criticize others the most about then look to see if this is your insecurity and work on it.
Last, how many times have we sinned and God forgives us every time without judging. He just keeps on loving and forgiving because love is His nature. We are to conquer self (fallen human nature), die to self, and to put on Christ which means stop judging and forgive, build up instead of tear down, stop being so hard on yourself, love God, others, and self, and bring peace to your relationships. What a difficult task that I suck at! With God’s grace anything is possible! Keep fighting!
Today’s challenge: Give someone a compliment today and forgive instead of judging. Very early on in teaching, I learned that everyone that walks through my door is suffering some kind of burden in their life and is struggling with a sin. This helped me be compassionate, understanding, and way less judgmental.
Be a servant, be a saint today!
#Christian YODO (You Only Die Once; we will live again!)
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