How does God Judge Us?

When God looks at us, what does He see?

When we look at each other, what do we see?

How is that different?

Over the years I have come in contact with many different people. Working in the theater and in sales I have met many kinds of individuals. When I worked door to door I ran into people right where they lived, at their front doors. Most of those people were good, friendly and willing to listen to what I had to offer. Very few were nasty or rude to me. I never would have thought that when I started, but it was true, most of the people I met were very nice folks.

I tried to learn what any good salesman must learn, not to judge people by what they look like or how they keep their homes. You never know who is going to buy and who is going to turn you down. You can’t know that until you get to know them a little and find out if they have a need for what you are offering? And still sometimes the person you are sure will buy says “No” and the person you never thought would buy does.

There is an old saying, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”

That is very true, but sadly most of us never follow that advice.

WE judge people

We judge people by the color of their skin, by the uniform they wear or the clothes they have on. We judge them by the jewelry they wear or the tattoos on their skin.

We go on to judge them by the life style they live or the religious beliefs they follow or don’t follow.

We even judge them by their body shape and what they have done to their hair.

We make judgements about people all the time and most of the time we are wrong because we are judging the wrong things.

We don’t judge the one thing about a person that matters, The Heart.

And it’s the Heart that God judges, not the clothes, skin color or anything else about us, He judges the Heart.

Even though I have met many different types of people and I know that I shouldn’t judge them until I get to know them, I am as guilty of judging as the next person. The way someone looks when I see them on the street or when they walk into the store effects how I think of them. Some people cause me to fear what they might do, just because they look a certain way. Some people make my skin crawl just because of the way the look or act.

I know that I shouldn’t judge people like this, but there are times when I can’t help myself. I fear them, loathe them or look down on them, all depending on how they look or act. That is not right, I shouldn’t think that way about people, but I do, and I’m guessing that most of us do as well. I try to keep myself from judging that way, but like most of us I fall short.

We are conditioned by society and those around us to feel certain things about others based on what they look like or how they dress. One group hates another because of some action a member of that group committed against them. The perfect example of that today is the “Black lives Matter” crowd and their hatred of the police because of what some officers have done; whether it was justified or not, doesn’t matter to this group. They lump all police officers into the same group and hate them.

This gets reported and talked about so much that the truth, whatever it is, gets buried.

This is not right.

Back in the bad old days of Hollywood, blacks were often seen as stupid, “step and fetch it” types. The wide eyed “feet don’t fail me now” characters of the ‘30s ‘40s and ‘50s.

This was also wrong, but it was presented to the public in countless movies of the period and that is what white people who didn’t know any real blacks thought of them.

What I have found is that when you just talk to black people or any person who is different than you and get to know them, even a little, they are just people. People like me and you, human beings with the same wants, needs and desires we all have.

They are created in the image of God just as I am, just as you are.

It’s the same with the homosexual.

While I personally cannot condone their life style choice, I have to admit they are children of God just as I am. They love and want to be loved. I cannot support the “gay agenda” but I can support the gay person as someone of value, as a real person of worth.

God doesn’t look at us as gay or straight, black or white, clean or dirty. He looks at us as His children who He loves and who He hopes will come to love Him. After all, He sent His Son to die for us, ALL of us, not just some of us, ALL of us.

We should try and look at people the way God looks at them, as someone who has value, who is worth getting to know. Not that everyone will become our best friends, but they shouldn’t become our worst enemy’s either.

The sad thing is we live in a fallen world, there is evil and sin in this world and it is all around us. Even the best of us mess up from time to time. We say the wrong things, do the wrong things and think the wrong thoughts. We make mistakes, but we shouldn’t be judged only on the mistakes that we make. Of course if our mistake causes us to harm someone or we break the law, we must be judged on that and face whatever the punishment for that mistake is. But we must all remember that we are more than the mistakes that we make in this life.

We all make mistakes, we all mess up, we all hurt people we shouldn’t.

As I said at the start of this, over my lifetime I have met many different people and that most of those people appear to be good honest, interesting folks. But some of the people I have come across are not what I would call good people.

There are some who will lie right to your face. A person was trying to get me to take what I was sure would be second bad check from them. I told them that this time it would come out of my pay if it were bad and they still tried to get me to take that check. They didn’t care about me or what it meant if that check bounced.

I remember the child of a couple in a small town who had also written me a bad check who never did answer for it; there was something about that child that gave me the creeps. My spiritual antenna was quivering; red flags were waving every time I was around this kid. There was just something dark or evil about that house and that kid, it creeped me out.

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but they can fool you. Some people are very good at that, looking you right in the face and lying. What do you do when you catch someone lying to you like that? I for one will not trust them again; I will take everything they say with “a grain of salt” as the old saying goes.

But how does God look at them?

He still loves them, still hopes for them to come to Him for forgiveness. Still hopes that they will learn to tell the truth and get right with the people they have lied to. God will give them not only second, but third, fourth and more chances to get it right, to make it right.

But even God, will after a time, give up on a person who never repents of whatever sin they are keeping and let them have it their way. He will not force them to come to Him. If they want no part of Him, then after a time, He will say, “So be it.”

When God looks at a Christian, He sees His Son Jesus and because that person has accepted what Jesus did on the cross, they are considered righteous in God’s eyes. But when God looks at a non-believer, I have to think He sees them as someone who He wants to come to Him and to know Him.

When someone has wronged us or lied to us, we should do as Jesus told us to do, we should pray for them. We should pray that they would repent, change the direction of their lives and make right whatever wrongs they are guilty of. But that doesn’t mean that we should turn the keys of our house over to a thief, or trust a past liar completely.

We, like God should learn to forgive, but we shouldn’t be foolish either, we need to keep our eyes open.

When God looks at us, He sees our heart.

When we look at others, we should try and see past their outward appearance and find their heart.

But we must remember that we are NOT God, we can’t know everything about the person the way God can.

But we can try and give them the benefit of the doubt.

We should try and see all people the way God sees them and we should respect the fact that we are all made in the image of God whether we believe in Him or not. We should remember that we are sinners, who have fallen short of what God would expect from us and that means when we start to judge someone because of their sin, we must remember that we have our own sins to account for.

As a homemade sign along a highway in Northern Minnesota said, “God knows everything about you, and He loves you anyway.”

We should try to see others as God sees them and not judge them too harshly.

What are we in God’s eyes?

We are His people, made in His image.

When God looks at us, what does He see?

He sees our Heart.

When we look at each other, what do we see?

We see the outside of a person.

How is that different?

We can’t know everything about a person the way God does, but we should try to see them as He does.

I hope this will help you see people you disagree with as people, with all the faults and foibles that you have, and not as just useless things that aren’t worth your time or your thoughts.

Matthew 7:1-2 tells us not to judge, or does it?

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

Jesus follows this up with a talk about not trying to take the speck out of our bothers eye before we remove the log that is in our own eye. The meaning is that we are all sinners; we all have done wrong things or said wrong things, so we should keep that in mind as we look and judge others.

We are ALL Children of God, made in His image but we are also all guilty of sin because we live in a fallen world and we need to remember that.

When we talk about judging others we need to remember what Paul says in Philippians 2:3-4

3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

I couldn’t have said it better.

I try to remember that every person I meet is better at something then I am. Most of the time they are better at a lot of things then I am. The next time you look at someone and find yourself judging them, remember that verse and value them.