MISJUDGED

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.
In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

(Jesus said) “Why are you trying to kill me?”

“You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill You?”

Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with Me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”

John 7:19b-24

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Put up your hand if you have ever misjudged someone.

It’s okay. I can’t see you but the Lord can so make sure you’re honest.

Live long enough and I am sure we all have found ourselves guilty of making an assumption or even starting to build an opinion of someone without really knowing them or possibly failing to look at the bigger picture.

I remember a time when I was providing case management to Veterans and their family members. One of the services I provided was giving rides to Veterans who didn’t have transportation and one day there were two Veterans in need of this, one I had worked with before and the other a new client.

I picked up the two and on the way to the V.A. hospital, the new client would not stop talking and ranting about anything and everything. He was very outspoken and pointed with his opinions, arrogantly so. His ranting had me developing all kinds of judgments about him as I listened and I found myself impatient with his negative attitudes about life in general, especially since I tend to try and look at the positive. Let’s just say my first impressions were not good and as I would find out, I fell into the trap of misjudging him.

Now I have often cautioned people who showed a propensity to be intolerant of others that the Lord will continue to send those types of people into your life until you learn how to cope with them. See if that doesn’t happen or hasn’t occurred in your own life. Given this, I’m sure you can figure out that I would end up connected to the belligerent, bombastic Veteran again and this time, things were a little different. You see, sometimes people just need someone to care about them, to be shown they count and are valued. It can make a huge difference.

In the case of the Veteran, he softened his tone and we actually were able to enter into a conversation about his life and how he got to where he was. Maybe you have heard it said that you truly can’t understand where someone is coming from unless you put on their shoes and walk in them for a few miles. This was certainly true in this case as the Veteran told me about his story which included a service experience that left him with mental health difficulties, difficulties that had gone untreated, difficulties that I was able to connect him to help for.

His new willingness to open up his heart to me, allowed the opportunity for me to share the good news of Jesus with him and this led him to bring his family to the church where my wife and I attend and serve. Now, not only the Veteran was being spiritually fed and ministered to but his wife and sons were as well. They have continued to come ever since and it’s been a life changer for all of them.

None of it would have happened if I had continued to misjudge the Veteran in the first place.

Well, as we see in today’s scripture passage and our continued study of John 7, we find the Jews in Jerusalem misjudging Jesus in such a way that draws His rebuke. Look again at these words here:

(Jesus said) “Why are you trying to kill me?”

“You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill You?”

Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with Me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”  John 7:19b-24

Jesus had just finished trying to explain to the Jewish gathering how He had received the knowledge He shared with them through His teaching. Simply put, He was only being obedient to the will of God, the One who had provided Jesus what He was teaching. He then made a point that angered the crowd present in the temple:

“Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law.”

Jesus had made it clear He was obedient to the Father and yet the Jewish audience He was teaching was nowhere as faithful to the law Moses had given them, a law he had received from God Himself. So to say that none of the Jews present were keeping the law was akin to saying that every one of them had been disobedient toward God, words that brought the Jews such anger that they wished to kill Jesus. Asking a question I am sure He already knew the answer to because Jesus always knows the thoughts of any of God’s people, Jesus receives the receives a ready response from the Jewish crowd:

“Why are you trying to kill me?”

“You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered.

Why would they misjudge Jesus and see Him as demon-possessed?

As we read on in our passage, we find the issue stemmed from Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath, the one miracle Jesus spoke of.

“I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with Me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”

Note here how Jesus highlights the hypocrisy of the Jews judgment of Him. For it was clear that the Law of Moses, which was actually the Law of God, made allowance for a circumcision to be done on the Sabbath for the Jews were doing it. You will recall that the Sabbath was to be kept holy and no work was to be done on that day but as we see, there were obviously some exceptions that did not violate the law or the Sabbath as the circumcision was meeting a requirement set forth by God, a sign of His covenant with His people.

The double standard was clear. The Jews were calling Jesus demon-possessed for healing a man on the Sabbath, asserting He was breaking one of the most fundamental commandments of God, and yet they saw themselves as righteous in God’s sight for performing their Sabbath circumcisions.

In the end translation, the Jews were judging by mere appearances without careful consideration of the matter at hand. They labeled Jesus without getting their facts straight and judged Him incorrectly.

Perhaps had they sought God and asked for His input, their behavior and attitudes would have been much different. For God would have made it clear that Jesus was no less carrying out the will of His Father than they were doing their Sabbath circumcisions.

Question: How often do we judge others without seeking God’s input on the person we are evaluating?

Too many times, that’s for sure. So it’s little wonder at least to me why God’s word as spoken by Jesus instructs us to:

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Matthew 7:1-2

If we’re true to this guidance, we can avoid the problem of misjudging others as we will avoid coming to a verdict on someone in the first place.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com