Am I judgmental? by beth

Although, these posts can be read by anyone....I am writing this for our female readers. =)

Daniel 4:37 Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.

I just started reading Daniel in my devotions. The verse quoted above comes after Nebuchadnezzar had spent seven years in a pasture as a beast. Nebchadnezzar had come to the shocking reality that what our God promises will come true. You see Nebchadnezzar had a dream that prophecied his fate, yet he truly thought he was invincible. I have to say that the Lord has been challenging my heart in this very area. We have actually been given the same warning.

We are told that "pride comes before destruction" (Prov 16:18), that God hates a proud look (Prov. 6:17), that God resists the proud but gives grace to thh humble (James 4:6), etc... Like Nebuchadnezzar, we don't think that God truly means what He says.

One area of pride that the Lord has been showing in my life is in the area of being judgmental. We catagorize sins, don't we? I tend to categorize sins and judge the seriousness of the sin based on whether or not I had ever committed such an act. Oh, how my heart began to seep with conviction as I realized how unlike Christ my spirit is. Christ Himself when faced with an adulterous woman said, “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.” Each one of has a besetting sin, and who are we to determine if someone else's constant sin struggle is greater than mine.

In the book Boy Meets Girl by Josh Harris, he takes an excerpt from a book entitled When God Weeps by Steven Estes and Joni Eareckson Tada. This is a very sobering look at the cross that maybe you've never thought of before. I know this is a little long, but please keep reading....

Somewhere during this day [while Christ was on the cross] an uneartly foul odor began to waft, not around His nose, but His heart. He feels dirty. Human wickedness starts to crawl upon His spotless being - the living excrement from our souls. The apple of His Father's eye.

His Father! He must face His Father like this!

From heaven the Father now rouses Himself like a lion disturbed, shakes His name, and roars against the shriveling remant of a man hanging on a cross. Never has the Son seen the Father look at Him so, never felt even the least of His hot breath. But the roar shakes the unseen world and darkens the visible sky. The Son does not recognize these eyes.

"Son of Man! Why have you behaved so? You have cheated, lusted, stolen, gossiped - murdered, envied, hated, lied. You have cursed, robbed, overspent, overeaten - fornicated, disobeyed, embezzled, and blasphemed. Oh, the duties you have shirked, the children you have abandoned! Who has ever so ignored the poor, so played the coward, so belittled My name? Have you ever held your razor tongue? What a self-righteous, pitiful drunk - you, who...peddle killer drugs, travel in cliques, and mock your parents... Does the list never end! Splittling families...You have burned down buildings, perfected terrorist tactics, founded false religions, traded in slaves - relishing each morsel and bragging about it all. I hate, loathe these things in You! Disgust for everything about You consumes me! Can You not feel my wrath?

Of course the Son is innocent. He is blamelessness itself. The Father knows this. But the divine pair have an agreement, and the unthinkable must now take place. Jesus will be treated as if personally responsible for every sin ever committed.

The Father watches as his heart's treasure, the mirror-image of Himself, sinks drowning into raw, liquid sin. Jehovah's stored rage against humankind from every century explodes in a single direction.

"Father! Father! Why have you forsaken me?!"

But heaven stops its ears. The Son stares up a the One who cannot, who will not, reach down or reply.
The Trinity had planned it. The Son endured it. The Spirit enabled Him. The Father rejected the Son whom He loved. Jesus, the God-man from Nazareth, perished. The Father accepted His sacrifice for sin and was satisfied. The Rescue was accomplished.

Joshua Harris, Boy Meets Girl(Sisters, OR.: Multnomah, 2000). p.174-176

After reading this, do you think while Christ was on the cross He made a distinction between sin catagories? He was there for one reason, sin! Let this be a challenge for you today to live as if all sin is equal in God's eyes. When we live with this mentality, our spirit begins to deflate of ourselves and becomes inflated with Christ!