Do Not Judge - James 4-5

James 4:11 (ESV)

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.

Judgment is reserved for a judge.   Spiritual judgment is reserved for The Judge; God!   Yet, for some reason we all think we can do it.  We all think we can bring judgment on others by our mere thoughts about their actions, decisions and/or directions in life.   Why?  We don’t like that others judge us.   We would like them to accept us unconditionally and all we do as permissible to them.  Even though we know we are sinners ourselves, we hope others won’t judge us.   Yet, it does not take long for us to do this.  We are all guilty of this.  This is why Jesus said these words in His Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 7:1-5 (ESV)

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

My log in my own eye makes it impossible for me to even see the speck in my brothers.   Yet, the heart expresses judgment through the tongue, about a person’s speck.   The interesting point that James is making is that the person who judges another is setting themselves up ABOVE the Law (God’s moral and character code of ethics and spirituality).   James is telling us that we are not only doing harm to our brother, whom we are judging, but we are doing harm to ourselves. We are putting ourselves above God, making ourselves The Judge!   We are displacing God and taking His throne.  That puts us in the place of judgement that we don’t really want to be.  Think about that before you try to point out the speck you think you see.