Judge Not

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."

Mother Teresa

I absolutely love this quote! My friend Denisa brought it to my attention this week (Thanks Denisa). I think it should be posted in big bold letters in every single church everywhere! Imagine what Christianity would look like if we spent less time judging each other and more time loving one another. It's amazing how often we judge one another. It's almost a constant thing. We are constantly looking at people and pinpointing things we don't like about them and coming to a conclusion about the person based on these things. We judge people because of their hair, their height, their weight, their age, their looks, where they geographically come form, their past, their social status, their style of dress—and it goes on and on and on..

I was disgusted in church on Sunday. There was a man who's been battling cancer and he was in attendance on Sunday after being away for months. When I saw him I was so happy and so grateful to God that he was well enough to come to church! When the Pastor acknowledged him from the pulpit they church responded with a pathetic hand clap. I don't know what was going on. The whole church should have been rejoicing that our brother who was once too sick to go to church or anywhere else for that matter was now well enough to be among us. A suspect that if he were more involved with the different activities in the church he would have received a warmer welcome.

May God have mercy on us all! We shouldn't treat people differently based on how involved they are in the church. We should treat everyone the same. We should love everyone. We should recognize the immeasurable worth and value of every person who comes into our midst, but we're too busy judging people we don't have time to love them. We don't have time to treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve. We don't have time to see their needs and what we can do to help meet them.

Mother Teresa was right. We can judge people or we can love them. We can't do both. We have to choose. It's one or the other. Which option will you choose today?

Following the Way,
Kevin