Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Psalms 117-118
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Luke 6:37-38
Jesus: If you don’t want to be judged, don’t judge. If you don’t want to be condemned, don’t condemn. If you want to be forgiven, forgive. Don’t hold back—give freely, and you’ll have plenty poured back into your lap—a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, brimming over. You’ll receive in the same measure you give.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Man, it’s easy to condemn other people for their actions, isn’t it? My church obviously has it right when it comes to the way we do Christianity. Those other denominations miss the boat. And those on the outside, wow. Look what they do. And the independents, let’s not even start with those, they don’t even ascribe to any particular historic theology. They just believe what they interpret from scripture for themselves. They are obviously on the wrong track.
I hope you hear the sarcasm and don’t think I’m serious about those last few sentences. Unfortunately, as the world looks in on us, that’s what they see and hear too often when they look at the Christian community as a whole. We don’t worship the same, we don’t act the same, we don’t believe the same way, we hold different things important, and then when we get together we fight instead of getting along in worship of the same God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
But that’s not the kingdom way. We have one judge, Jesus. The only One who can condemn is the sinless One, Jesus and He forgives when we accept His forgiveness. So why do we judge and condemn and fail to forgive? Why is it so hard to follow Jesus direction in this regard?
I think it goes back to our trying to earn our way into heaven. We want to do something with the problem that plagues all humanity, sin. So we try to be as good as we can. We try not to steal or lie or cheat. We usually don’t murder or commit adultery or commit other crimes against each other that would put us in jail. But we know deep within our heart that we are not good enough to make it to heaven.
So what we do, is subconsciously figure that God will want to take at least some of us, so if we can be better than the person next to us, we’ll be okay. It’s like the reasoning when camping in bear country. You don’t have to be able to outrun the bear to survive, just the person sitting next to you at the camp fire. Let the bear catch them instead of you.
But there is a problem with that thinking when it comes to the judgment. God’s will is that all of us be saved and join Him in heaven. We are the ones that choose our destiny. And the choice is not by our good or bad behavior because none of us can ever be good enough. God never compares us with each other. That would be like using whatever I might guess is a mile using nothing but my eye as the length of a mile and measure it against what someone else thinks is a mile. God is never that imprecise in judging good and evil. And He already has the correct standard to judge us against. The standard is His son, Jesus, the God/Man.
So how do you measure up to the God/Man, Jesus? He was sinless. That puts all of us way below the standard. You see, every other person is far removed from God because a single sin separates us from Him. He is holy and will not allow sin in His presence. So when measured against the sinless One, we all far short. We all miss the boat. We all deserve the penalty of death. But then God turns to His Son and for those who believe in Him as their redeemer, He finds the sin is gone, forgiven, thrown away as far as the east is from the west never to be remember against us again.
How can we judge when we are so far from God except for God’s love? How can we condemn when we are ourselves condemned except for His forgiveness? How can we not forgive others when He has forgiven us so much and allowed us to come into His presence. How can we not give when He has given us so much?
When we do those things, Jesus gives us a great promise with it. When we forgive, we will find forgiveness, when we give, we will receive in great measure. In fact, I think of being given in measure like brown sugar. You can either pour sugar in from the package and it kind of falls out in clumps and you get about half a cup when when you really want a cup full. Or you can mash it down as you fill the cup and get two or three times as much in the cup as when you just try to pour the brown sugar in. That’s how God gives back, shaken down, smashed in like brown sugar, filled to over flowing.
Sounds like a good way to live, doesn’t it?
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