How Do You Judge?

Dearly beloved, judge yourself as God judges you in Christ. To judge yourself by any other standard is worthless. Take the Apostle Paul for example.

In the eyes of the religious world, he was up and coming. He had the right pedigree and religious education; he had been to the right schools, and sat at the feet of Gamaliel, one of the most renowned teachers of his day. He had all the trappings of power; he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, a member of the Sanhedrin, the governing body of Israel, yet he was dead in sin.

Oh, he was religious; so religious that he was committed to persecute those who followed the Lord Jesus Christ. He later said of himself that he was a blasphemer and a persecutor, and injurious. He breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. He was so zealous for his religion that he persecuted the church, but he was dead in sin.

He said later that Christ came to save sinners; of whom he said, “I am chief.” He had gone into the homes of God’s people, had them arrested and imprisoned, even had them killed. He was very religious and committed to his cause, but he was dead in sin.

One day he met the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. The Lord said, “Saul, Saul, why persecutes thou Me?” Paul said, “Who art Thou? Lord?” The Lord said, “I am Jesus Whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” The Lord didn’t say Paul was persecuting people, he said that he was persecuting Him. The Lord takes it personally when his beloved ones are attacked.

Paul’s life changed that day. The Lord that Paul had persecuted sent a certain disciple, Ananias, to minister healing and salvation to him. Things that mattered to Paul before that, no longer mattered to him. Paul said that he counted them as dung. He suffered the loss of all things that previously mattered to him.

Now he knew both the power of Christ’s resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, having become conformed to his death that somehow, he might attain to the out-resurrection from the dead. Paul no longer cared about his own righteousness through the law, he cared about the righteousness that comes by believing in Christ, which is God’s way of making one righteous.

He believed the revelation we read about in the letters he wrote to the Church. The revelation the Lord gave him changed his life as it does ours as we believe it.

Under his ministry, the Word grew mightily and prevailed throughout Asia Minor, yet by the end of his life, they all forsook him and what he taught. People who previously loved him, could nowhere be found.

Paul was who he was by the grace of God and he knew it. He got to the place in his renewed mind believing that he said, “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mind own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but He that judges me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, Who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.”

He overcame his past, what people thought about him, society, the religionists; all of it, by believing who he was in Christ and his judgment of him. In Christ he was now alive unto God. This is all that matters; all the rest is dung.

Forget the past and press toward the mark for the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus, dearly beloved. Think of yourself as the Lord thinks about you. Walk in light of his judgment, and judge yourself as he judges you.