EACH ONE FOR HIMSELF

“You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.

“As it is written:

‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me: every tongue will acknowledge God.’

“So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.” Romans 14:10-12.

Who can answer that question? It’s like asking a little child who has just been caught red-handed with his hand in the cookie jar, “Why did you do it?” Of course, he doesn’t know why. He wanted the cookie in spite of a warning! Like the silly answer my adult son sometimes gives me, “Because I can!”

The real reason why we judge a brother or sister, or treat them with contempt is that we can’t keep our hands “out of the cookie jar”. We don’t have the courage to own up to our own guilt, so we take it out on someone else. Underneath that is another problem. We are insecure. We are not fully convinced of who we are so we need to control someone else.

It all started in the Garden of Eden. Adam was caught red-handed with his hand in the cookie jar. God instructed him not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or there would be consequences but, just like a little child, he didn’t believe his Father. He had to try it out for himself. When it all went wrong, just like a child, he blamed his wife and, to make matters worse, he blamed God for giving her to him! And she blamed the serpent and, unfortunately for the serpent, he had no-one else to blame!

We have an inbuilt capacity to dodge responsibility by pinning it on someone else. We might even acknowledge guilt but to be honest enough to admit, “I did it and I take full responsibility for my action,” is another story. But how does this fit in with judging someone else or treating him with contempt because he doesn’t believe or behave the way I do?

There is perhaps more than one reason why we do it. Pride sets us up above others and prompts us to think that we can set the standard for them.  We do this when we are so sure that we are right that we try to force others to believe as we do. Religion does this to the extreme, even killing people when force does not work. The Pharisees killed Jesus because they were convinced that they were right.

Underneath pride lies a more sinister reason for inflexibility – a sinful lifestyle that does not want to be exposed. The Pharisees hated Jesus because He read them like a book. In response, they both judged Him and treated Him with contempt – calling Him a glutton and a drunkard and even Beelzebub, and having Him executed as a blasphemer.

But why do believers sometimes resort to treating a brother or sister in this way? We may not be guilty of blatant sin, and yet we can’t keep our hands off our fellow-believers. I believe that it comes from insecurity – we need others in our camp to bolster us up because we are afraid to stand alone on our convictions. We need approval and, when we don’t get it, we turn on them. 

We need to take our cue from Jesus. He was the Son of God and He knew it. At His baptism, He had received His Father’s approval and He lived in that security through every experience of His earthly life. He had no need to prove Himself by gathering supporters around Him. He lived under His Father’s approval and left it to the opposition to make up their own minds about Him by examining the evidence.

“But,” you may say, “God has never audibly told me that I am His son.” True, but it is written very clearly in His Word.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are.” 1 John 3:1.

If you are not convinced, what about this one? “Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12.

Only when we are secure in the awareness of our Father’s approval can we allow others to follow their convictions without interference. God does not hold us responsible for what others believe and do, but we will give an account before Him for ourselves. Each of us will be judged according to the truth we have received.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.