My Daily Devotional

Do Not Judge

“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.”
Romans 2:1

I have found over the years that it is so easy for us to judge others, by what we hear about them or from what we observe about them. So many times, however, I have discovered that sometimes what we see and what we hear is not what it seems to be. Just this week there was a young man that had been killed in Iraq that was awarded one of the highest medals that the army had bestowed on someone. Through his heroic actions he had saved several of his fellow soldiers from sure death, and had sacrificed his own life to save them. When some of his former schoolmates were interviewed they said about him “that he never stood out” and that “he usually thought about himself first”. This young soldier had been judged so wrong by the people who supposedly knew him, as they had only seen his outwardly appearance and had not witnessed his true inner being. It is so easy to want to judge others by what we see and hear, but only God knows the heart of every person. So often we do not take the time to get to know the true character of people around us, but judge them on the first impression. Outwardly appearances are deceiving, and we should never judge others based on them, but rather get to know what they stand for and believe in. There are so many examples in the Bible where Jesus chose people who did not stand out in the crowd, but He knew their hearts, and what they stood for. I would encourage each of you to not judge others based on what you see, but get to know them, understand them and then also realize that it is God that is the only one that can judge.