daily java

Daly Java: You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? (Romans 2:1-4)

It seems that condemning each other is the thing we like to do most.

When many people think of church, they think of an place where everybody is dressed to the teeth and ready to look down their noses at those they consider their spiritual inferiors.

It makes for a lousy place to be.

We were acquainted with a church a few years ago whose ladies made it a point to tell any women who came in that they were to wear skirts, not pants to church.

Now they really thought they were doing good, and that they were doing the will of the Lord. But all they were doing was pushing their will on others.

Overlooking that rather glaring thing, they were a good church and friendly. And to their credit, they were not necessarily overly pushy on the dress thing, they just felt it was the proper response to worshipping God.

The problem is, we do not have the power nor permission to tell people how they have to dress or what they have to do in order to worship God.

Later on in Romans, the apostle Paul also says, Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:4).

In other words, shut up and let God take care of what he wants. You don’t have to make up a bunch of stuff to be holy. You are holy if you are in God.

Hard to do it is, as Yoda would say. And it is hard to not try to force your own ideas of propriety or whatever on others.

Now we are not talking about sin, and things God called wrong. We are talking about judgment. Those who do so many times have glaring wrongs in their own lives, yet they place themselves as gatekeepers to the Kingdom of God. Their ideas are God’s ideas, they feel.

And they want  you to feel as strongly about them as they do.

But they are wrong to mandate them to other children of God.

In fact, we are wrong to mandate anything of our opinion to other children of God. Fine to do them yourselves, but a sin to try and make others do them, too.