How Come We're So Darn Judgmental?

Really? What’s our deal?

Jesus knew we were judg­men­tal peo­ple. He even had to make sure it became part of the per­ma­nent record: “Judge not, that you not be judged.” (Matthew 7:1, ESV)

Now, before you start up with dis­cern­ment vs. judg­ment, let me give you my hill­billy def­i­n­i­tion of judg­ment vs. discernment.

Let’s say you just heard Billy Bob cheated on his wife. You say, “Oh my.” In your “Oh my,” you’re think­ing, “that’s ter­ri­ble, I feel sorry for his wife and kids. I hope every­one is okay. That’s such a tough sin to get through.”

Hey, guess what? That’s dis­cern­ment. That’s know­ing what is right from wrong.

But the next thing you say is, “Well, I’d never do that. Billy Bob is such a scoundrel. He’s dirt­ier than dirt. Why he’s lower than the scum on Satan’s boots. I think I’m gonna pick up the phone and tell everyone/​Twitter this/​post this on Face­book and let every­one know what a jerk he is.”

That’s judg­ment. Think­ing oth­ers to be lower than our­selves because of a sin they com­mit­ted. The same Bible that we find, “You shall not com­mit adul­tery” in also con­tains “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23, ESV)

None of us are any bet­ter than any­one else. Some of us have been jus­ti­fied by Christ, but we’re not bet­ter. But man, do we get judg­men­tal. It’s a sin to be judg­men­tal of someone.

When I was a pas­tor, I had a judg­men­tal streak. I still have an over­whelm­ing sense of jus­tice. That part isn’t so bad, but when it turns to judg­men­tal­ism, it’s very bad. If I saw sin, I’d want it gone. Which is good. But I’d go about doing it in a bad way. Not just that, I’d have this self-​righteous feel­ing about myself the entire time. Like I was bet­ter than the per­son sinning.

After I fell, most of that went away. It’s amaz­ing what a great fall can do to you. It’s phe­nom­e­nal how expe­ri­enc­ing the grace of God can trans­form you into some­one who just wants to love sin­ners more. I get emails from fallen pas­tors fre­quently. I just want to help them. Before my fall? I prob­a­bly would have thought, “That lousy guy couldn’t keep him­self straight? Piti­ful.”

Not any­more.

Read more after the jump.….

Many of you know I’m a fan of the Arkansas Razor­backs. Recently, I wrote an arti­cle about Bobby Petrino, for­mer head coach. Seems he was out rid­ing his motor­cy­cle with some­one who wasn’t his wife and whom he had been hav­ing an affair with. He got fired.

He did an inter­view with ESPN a few days ago in which he expressed remorse over his actions. I watched sports broad­cast­ers talk about it. Most of them thought he was fak­ing because Coach Petrino doesn’t have the best track record in telling the truth. He cried in the inter­view a bit and seemed sin­cere to me about putting the pieces back together.

One thing really struck me. He got emo­tional when he said this: “I’m going to keep my life in bet­ter bal­ance. And I really feel I’ll be a bet­ter coach because this hap­pened, because now I know that I’m going to coach the per­son as much as the player and help the per­son who has made mis­takes, help him under­stand that he is not going to be defined by the mis­takes he has made but how he reacts to it and over­comes it.”

I heard him say he had learned some­thing about judg­men­tal­ism. He learned that peo­ple need to be cared for after they mess up and dealt with regard­ing how they respond to their fail­ures. He’s talk­ing about grace, in a way.

I learned a lot about grace after my fall from min­istry. God for­gave me, loved me and put me on the right path again. And in turn, I try and show that same grace to those who fall. It’s a hard les­son to learn, but one that should be prac­ticed by us all — before we fall too far.