Read the Word:
Romans 2:1-11
Meditate on the Word:
I remember being confused as a child when hearing someone talked about measuring horses, using “hand” as a unit of measurement. Of course, I know now that a hand has been a standard four inches since the 1500s. But as a child, I knew that, for instance, everyone in my family had different sized hands. Whose hand would they use to measure a horse? How big was this person’s hand? The point is that without a standard, a fourteen-hand horse would look vastly different from person to person. It can be the same with our conduct.
If we each use our own standards of conduct, or even the standard of a group, we can have wildly varying expectations of what a “good” person is. This leaves us free to judge others who do not measure up to our standard, wherever that standard happens to lie. The problem is that there is only one true standard, which is God’s. His standard is perfection. And we all fall far short of His standard. This means that there is only one righteous judge, and that person is not any of us. In the passage immediately before the “therefore,” is a whole list of sins. Most of us have been guilty of at least one thing from the list. Therefore, we are all disqualified as the judge. However, we are all qualified to receive God’s grace. Even those who are “worse” than us.
Pray the Word:
Ask our Lord to reveal to you any instances of judging others. Repent from doing so.
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