"Judge not, thqat ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." (Matthew 7:1-5)
Having a combined 10 years of service in the area of law enforcement has given me distinct ability to recognize a fact about human beings...we don't always judge matters correctly. Now you might say, "he should be a rocket scientist with such knowledge," but if you'll give me a little lattitude, I'll share with you what I mean...
I have gone to the scene of a crime and whether my role was as a patrolman, criminal investigator or as a police chaplain, I've noticed that three people can observe the same event and yet come up with three separate accounts of what actually happened. Case in point...a man enters a store and commits armed-robbery. The clerk gives one description, the witness at the soda fountain gives another one, and the person the fleeing felon bumps into gives totally different descriptions of the perpetrator. The police sketch artist must use great patience and much skill to come up with a composite image of what the person robbing the store actually looks like.
The problem is perspective. Like the story of the three blind men describing an elephant. One feels the elephants hind leg and describes the elephant as a tree. The man who feels his ear describes an elephant as a thick carpet, and the one he feels the elephants trunk describes the elephant as a snake. All three are experiencing the same thing, but each from their own perspective. So tell me...how can they judge what an elephant really looks like if they can't see in the first place? Or how can the victims of crime give you a good description if they all saw something through their own "world view."
Time nor space permits me to take the analogy much further to include such factors as the personal life of the witness, the environment they grew up in, or the cultural biases that they may hold firmly to.
In other words, appearances are not always reliable.
A humorous story was told about the town gossip. She had appointed herself as the "moral police" of the community. It seems that one day she accused a man in the neighborhood of alcoholism because as she put it, "with my own eyes" she had seen his truck parked in from of the local tavern. Being no dummy himself, the accused man gave no defense whatsoever. Instead, that evening he parked his truck in front of this town gossip's house and left it there all night! She quickly learned that appearances cannot be counted on.
I can mention a lot of people who "appeared" to be wonderful, men who did a lot of good for their communities....men like Reverend Jim Jones, who in Indianapolis was one of the more prominent clergymen, doing all kinds of good projects for the people. In fact, he later named his church, "The People's Temple." He would later move to Guyana and on November 18, 1978 most of his followers committed suicide following his instructions.
At first, Jim Jones had all of the appearances of being a caring, loving, charismatic leader who wanted to do good in the world...but years later we've learned that appearances can't be trusted.
One of my favorite movies was released in 1969 and it starred Andy Griffith. He was the happy-go lucky minister in the film titled, "Angel in my Pocket." In one of the scenes, a couple of the "busybodies" in the small town saw him go into a strip joint. Before long, the word was out that the new pastor had problems.
As it turned out, no one even thought of asking him one important fact...what were you doing going into that strip joint?
Well, when it all came to a head, Griffith spoke a memorable line. When he replied to the old gossip who said that he had played the organ for a "naked harlot," He said "she was not naked. And how do you know she was a harlot? You are bearing false witness!" Well? What was the truth?
He had gone there to buy an old organ for the church. What was the bottom-line? You can't trust always trust what you see.
One of the reasons that some churches do not grow is because the circle of friends outside of the church seems to diminish as the members of the church get more involved in church life.
Another reason can be that it is too easy to become so judgmental and narrow-minded that the people of the church and their minister judge things purely on the surface, without taking the time to get to know people around them, and what the struggles are that they are facing in their life.
When you look on the young girl who is "painted up" and has three colors dyed into her hair, and a nose ring, earrings and tatoos, you automatically think.....REBELLION! However, if you were to look beyond the outward appearance, you might find a frightened child who is looking for acceptance and affection. If she is loose in her morals, it may not be that she is simply wicked...perhaps she has been molested and she is reaching out of love in the only way she knows....as twisted as that might seem, it is a reality.
When you see the old drunk, you think he simply has no self-control and he is worthless. If you look beyond the outward appearance, you might see a man who had some great tragedy befall him. He may have lost his whole family in an accident, and he is coping in the only way he knows how.
Of course, we don't know that, if we just make judgment calls on appearance alone.
The is an old bit of wisdom that I recently learned was true. It goes like this..."you can't judge a book by its cover." While stopping for gas, I went into the convenience story to purchase a cup of coffee. On the counter was a small book with a captivating title..."The secret to happiness in life." Being the inquisitive type, and someone who likes to read, I picked up to glance over the chapter titles. As I opened it, I felt an electrical charge go through my hands that made me drop the book! It was a gag gift that was intended to shock you by means of a 9 volt battery inside. You cannot judge a book by its cover!
I challenge you today to do your best to look beyond the outward appearance of people. Look past their behavior, their impatience, their failures. Look for what might be causing their behavior. I know that sin is at the root of it all, but I just feel in my hearts, that if we can take Matthew 7:1-5 to heart, there won't be enough room for the people who will come to our churches.
May God bless you and may He keep you in the palm of his hand
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