Judge Not, lest ye be judged for the judgement that you judge, ye shall be judge; and with what measure you 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…( Mat 7: 1-4 )

This verses had been quoted by many people and pastors or those who share this portion of Scripture are often worried when they chose to rebuke someone of wrong doing. There are some important message here:

1. God wants us to be sincere ( to be truthful ).

Before we choose to rebuke or tell someone of his mistakes, are we qualified to do so? If we do the same mistakes, we are not qualified so its better to rectify our problem first. Normally a person will comply if they find we are blameless. Many people want to take the leadership role or want to be in power so that they have such power to rebuke others. But if we cannot tackle such problem in our life, why must we demand such position as a judge or someone in authority. Jesus wants us to humble ourselves and do things in love. To be patient prevents us from making mistakes when dealing with people.

2. God wants us to be merciful and kind.

The position of a judge is to find who is guilty and met out punishment. Normally this is done infront of others. People will know. It is not a good thing to be told that you are wrong, in front of witnesses or infront of a crowd. If we purposely do such action upon others’ life with the intention of hurting and shaming, it will return to us. It is not wrong to rebuke a person of wrong doing but according to Paul, talk to the person personally, not in a meeting or infront of many people. If we do this infront of a crowd, then many people will judge us. It is adviseable to get someone who are better than us to advise the person concern then to do it ourselves. Slow to speak or be kind to people in our words will prevent ourselves from becoming a judge. Knowing that we are sinners to will make us merciful in the words we use.

3. God wants us to Live in peace with others.

To be judgemental in our attitude or thoughts will have a negative influence in our life. More often than not, our relationship is affected if we think negatively about other people. We will treat them badly, look down on or we will dislike them etc. The reason why some people do not approach other people is due to a judgemental attitude. When we accept others as they are, we are beginning to exercise what true love is. Judgemental attitude is a lot to do with personal pride. Sometimes we want to put ourselves better than the others by doing some comparasion. To improve our inner being, avoid life of comparasion. We can only live in peace when we are able to be at peace with others.

So brothers and sisters, these verses are not meant to scare us and make us not willing to help others but rather God wants us to reflect on our own life so that we will be more affective in helping others and ourselves.