Thou shalt not judge. Really?!!!

How many times have you heard someone say, “Oh don’t worry, I don’t judge.”? Or how many times have you been accused of being judgmental for simply speaking your mind? It has always annoyed me when I hear people say “I don’t judge”, I mean I’m sure these people are well intentioned but they are so misinformed it’s not even funny. When people are saying this they don’t realize what they are saying. Most people are simply trying to say “Don’t worry no matter what you say it won’t negatively influence the opinion I have of you.” This is fine and in a sense commendable, but is this what  we are really saying when we say; “I don’t judge.”? No unfortunately not, when we say “judge” we are really saying we won’t make any moral, ethical, or personal judgement about the person, not just negative judgements but any whatsoever, even positive judgement. Now this is absolutely ridiculous, we make judgements EVERY SINGLE DAY. It is absolutely impossible for us to not judge, judging is how we figure right from wrong, how we navigate from immorality to morality. I judge what clothes I am going to wear to school/to work, right after I step out of bed. Judgement is simply making a choice/ a decision, it does not mean to assume a negative motive of someone’s actions. This is why I get annoyed everytime I hear someone say; “I do NOT judge”. As I have shown this is a DARN LIE, we all judge, what we try not to do, is to not judge NEGATIVELY, to not assume someone’s motive and not to condemn because we have no way of knowing their heart. This is what Christ means when he commands “Thou shalt not JUDGE.” He is telling us that only God can judge someone because only he knows the heart of every people. But at the same time we are told to judge “the fruits” meaning we have a responsibility to identify what is good moral action and what is bad immoral action. Christ, goes on to say that this will help us identify a true prophet from a false prophet. Does this sound like a judgement to you? Because honestly it sounds pretty darn close to me. Right but Jesus is saying that we must judge the actions of such people, and from there determine if they are trustworthy or not. See, Jesus is not saying make NO MORAL JUDGEMENT WHATSOEVER, this would be moral relativism, when we refuse to see anything as objectively right or objectively wrong, he is saying refrain from condemnation of the PERSON because we cannot see the FULL PICTURE. We do not know what drives them to do what they do, why they did what they did and what led them to that decision. When Jesus teaches this he was usually referring to the actions of the Pharisees, because they saw themselves better than the “wretched people” who they saw as sinners, because they did not follow the law like the Pharisees who always kept up with the laws of The Lord. What they did not take into consideration is that these people did not have the ability to access the law like they did. They automatically condemned these people as bad people, without first looking at the whole situation. This is what Jesus warns us about, he warns us not to close our hearts to our neighbors like the Pharisees did. Negative judgement or condemnation shields  our hearts from loving and having compassion, this is why we are told not to “JUDGE”, because negative judgement leads away from LOVE and thus away from GOD. What we are actually encouraged to do (though not explicitly listed in scripture) is to practice positive judgment, whereas negative judgement closes our heart, making it difficult for us to love, positive judgement opens our hearts, making us more compassionate and understanding. Therefore, not all judgement is negative and to be avoided like most people think but a correct use of our ability to judge can lead us to become more loving, compassionate and merciful. Judgement should help us to sympathize for our neighbors and not condemn them in their weaknesses, but love them in their shortcomings like Christ did!!!