Monday: Prosecutor’s Stand or Witness Box?
WEEK 41
MONDAY
PROSECUTOR’S STAND OR WITNESS BOX?
Romans 2:17-23
We are looking at the mastery of criticism. Going around and picking motes out of peoples’ eyes doesn’t sharpen our eyes; it dulls them to our own faults. For the attitude becomes: I must be good; look at the bad I am finding in others. But that is a fallacy; for by finding the bad, you become the bad. Always finding the bad is itself a bad attitude.
A minister preached a sermon on “The Mistakes of Stanley Jones.” I saw him the next day at a ministers’ meeting and asked him how many were converted the night before, as he preached on my mistakes. I told him I had twenty-five converted while he was preaching about me. How many did he have? He looked embarrassed and managed to say in defense, “Well, I have to fight the devil.” I replied, “Good. But be sure he doesn’t invade you while you are fighting him.”
When we are on the prosecutor’s stand, we are not in the witness box. If we are denouncing others, we are not announcing Jesus. Our business is to be, not the judge of all the earth, but the bearers of the good news of Jesus. Only God is good enough and wise enough to decide people’s destiny. He has never committed to us judgment on people; he has committed to us the privilege of bearing the good news. So I preach the gospel and leave judgment with God. That is simpler and safer. “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged,” said Jesus (Matt 7:2 RSV). So the one who is dispensing judgment is laying it up for herself or himself.
We have such partial knowledge of people and their motives that we are in no position to judge them. A little boy looked through the keyhole of an operating room and saw a doctor cutting a patient. He said to the son of the doctor, “Your father is a very bad man; I saw him cutting up people.” We don’t know the why of people’s actions, so we are in no position to judge them. Only God knows that. So we must go out to love up the good in people and love down the bad. If we fail, we are better for having tried, for we give out love and become love.
O Jesus, you are wisdom; when I take your way, I find it better for me. I become born of the qualities I give out. Help me to give out love and only love. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Today I shall give out love and only love and if not received, then more love.