The Ultimate Love Stopper

In my last post I suggested that there is a radical difference between judgment and discernment. I finished by suggesting that unless we (a) have a relationship with a person, (b) have been given an invitation to speak into that person's life, and (c) are willing to act on their behalf to help them overcome their self-destructive behavior, then we really are not in a position to confront or share our discernment with them. To go against this suggestion, I believe, does damage to others as well as to ourselves.

If we confront others with our discernment without the above criteria in place, we do an incredible amount of damage to others. I submit to you that our failure to meet these three criteria before confronting another individual is one of the primary reasons why Christians are perceived as arrogant hypocrites. And such perceptions are actually not far fetched. Because it is arrogant to assume you understand another person's situation well enough to confront them on their behavior without the above three criteria in place. None of us are omniscient! And most of our judgments tend to be hypocritical. We often judge others on behaviors that we don't struggle with while conveniently ignoring the behaviors we do struggle with and that often have pervasive influence within our community. How else can you explain why Christians are known for their strong stance against homosexuality, but not a strong stance against gossip or lying or gluttony or materialism? And maybe you are against those things as well. But until we start dealing with sin evenhandedly, we'd be wise to keep our mouths shut.

So expressing our discernment without the above criteria in place does tremendous harm to others. But forming inexpressible judgments of others also does tremendous damage to us. This is the side of judgment we often don't think about.

See, every behavior ultimately has purpose. The purpose of email is one of communication. The purpose of eating is one of nourishment. The purpose of a car is one of transportation. But what purpose is there in formulating a judgment--or even a discernment--if you are not in a position to express it? The answer is that it serves no meaningful purpose at all. Inexpressible judgments simply pollute our perspective of other human beings that have been created in the image of God. Walking around with opinions about other human beings serves no purpose at all if we are not in a position to express them. And don't forget that lots of our opinions are misinformed! How many of us have ever formulated an opinion about another person that proved to be false? Probably all of us! The problem is that we often fight to keep those opinions alive because we hate to be proven wrong. So once we have developed an opinion of another, we make every effort to keep the accuracy of that opinion intact. Meanwhile, we fail to recognize that we have become enslaved to our misinformed opinions--opinions that ultimately serve no purpose because we are not in a position to express them. Such inexpressible opinions do damage to us.

Our inexpressible opinions of others keep us in bondage and prevent us from fulfilling the mission God gave us to be agents of self-sacrificial love. Nothing blocks God's flow of love through us to others more than judgment. Judgment is the ultimate love stopper. If we want to fulfill the mission God has given us to win the world to Christ, it must start by turning away from judgment to Calvary-like love.