“Judge
not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned.
Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give,
and it shall be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, and shaken
together, and running over…” Luke
6:37-38
The writer is saying, we are to act like
Jesus in our compassion for others. We are not to condemn anyone. We are not
good enough or smart enough to decide someone else eternal destiny. Jesus was
not saying that we are never to make evaluations. We are told to know people by
their fruit, guard against false prophets, admonish one another, and discipline
one another. But that type of judging is to help people, not hurt people.
The point is, we never are to give up on
people. We are to reach out to them with love and be willing to forgive them
when they do wrong. Unforgiving spirits among Christians are major barriers
that keeps the church from making the impact it should in the community and
city.
Then, Jesus promised that Christians will
be rewarded in proportion to our broadness of our practices. It is the law of the harvest:
“If we give
sparingly we shall reap also sparingly: and if we give bountifully we will
receive bountifully” (2
Corinthians 9:6).
When we plant seeds of generosity, showing the
mercy of God and being strengthen by His love, we can be generous and merciful
to other people. Every 60 seconds, a child in Africa dies of Malaria. “This
preventable and treatable disease transmitted through the bite of a mosquito,
claims 655,000 lives each year”.
Lent is a good time to think about our relationship
with Jesus and how our relationships affects our love and care for one another.
During this Lenten season, as a church
family, let’s pray and support the “Imagine No Malaria” initiative of The
United Methodist Church during the 2017 session of the Annual Conference. The world does not understand the meaning of
Luke 6:38. If people did understand, it would change their whole lives.
Prayer: Lord, we seek to know Your Word
that we may know Your will, help us not to know Your will without doing it. In
Your name, Jesus. Amen!
