Judging

The other morning, in homeroom at school, we were doing devotions. Right now, our class is reading 1 Corinthians...

Anyway, we’re up to Chapter 5, and one verse caught my eye:

“What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside.”

What I think this means is,,

Just because there’s this girl who seems like she hates life. Hates everything – well, it doesn’t make it right for us to judge her. I mean, if I suddenly started wearing all black, would that mean I was suddenly gothic or emo or whatever – just because I’m trying to “Make a statement” and “Be different”?

No.

If any of you have read the “Diary of a Teenage Girl” books, you’ll know who Chloe Miller is. In book 1, Chloe is like that – she dresses in this really, well, weird way, doesn’t really fit in.
But she hadn’t always been like that. She used to be a Christian girl, who had awesome friends and stuff. But then some stuff happened, and I guess it made her hate who she was or something – because she changed. And suddenly, because of her outward appearance – her friends ditched her. Didn’t talk to her.

But you know what? She didn’t really hate life. She, along with a whole lot of people – are searching. Same as in this world. Teens are searching. Searching for something real.

And I think that, like Libby said – we need to be there for them. Yeah, maybe they’ve made mistakes. But who are we to judge them? I mean, we do wrong stuff all the time. Cuz, uhh, we’re not perfect.

“What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside.”
There’s that verse again. Now, I want you to read it. Carefully...
Do you get it what it’s saying?

DO NOT judge those who are “Different” or “Bad” or whatever. Sure, it’s not good to hang around with them all the time, because they’d be a bad influence on you – that is – if that’s the way they are inside. If it’s an outward appearance thing? Well, most likely, you’ll be a good influence on them.

And I mean, just because someone calls themselves a Christian, sometimes they just act worse than people who aren’t. And I mean, really. I’ve had lots of non-Christian friends. I mean, my best friend in prep and grade one wasn’t a Christian. My best friend in years 2-5 wasn’t. But hey, I’m still here, still good. And if anything? I hope I’ve influenced them in a good way... but it helped that, along the way – I also had Christian friends to hang with, too.

Which, actually brings me to another subject. But I’ll post about that another time :)

So, just remember this. (And this post has been really good for me, too!)

Don’t judge anyone. It’s up to God to judge. Not us.

Luv,Emii