Damaging Judgments (Friday Devotional)

 

Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall give praise to God.” So then, each of us will be accountable to God. Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of another.

- Romans 10:10-13

When the workers from Irving-based JR’s Demolition arrived at the pink Craftsman-style bungalow in Dallas’ Vickery Place neighborhood last January, they found a home in a state of disrepair. No house number was visible on the structure, and debris from a recent storm lined the curb. There were various cosmetic issues—chipped paint, cracked windows, broken gutters—and the house appeared to be abandoned altogether. Indeed, it was in generally the same state as other homes they’d previously demolished in the same neighborhood. So they went to work, quickly reducing the 97-year old house to rubble.

They had the wrong house.

It turns out they were supposed to demolish a home two blocks over. The pink bungalow, while unoccupied, had been inherited by a Los Angeles-based man following the death of the previous owner, a family friend. Renovation plans were in the works. But the demolition company didn’t know any of that—thinking they were targeting the right house, they just swung the wrecking ball.

Scripture warns us that our judgment and condemnation of others can be similarly destructive. A sharp word here or a disparaging remark there can devastate a person. And even when you feel confident someone deserves your denunciation, the fact remains that sometimes you don’t have all the information. God is the only infallible judge.

But in a world where outrage is often a coin of the realm, self-righteousness and condemnation are a chronic temptation. It feels good to place yourself above someone else; it makes you feel taller when you cause someone else to shrink. But the Lord doesn’t call us to bring others down, he calls us to lift them up. Rather than breaking people down, we are commanded to build them up and work to remove stumbling blocks that could cause them to fall. God is the Creator, and he wants his children to follow his lead by making rather than breaking.

Condemnation has the force of a wrecking ball, and when misdirected can be just as destructive. Better then to leave judgment to the judge and focus instead on the constructive mission we’ve been given. For when you’re working with love instead of self-righteousness, you never have to worry about hitting the wrong house.