“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.” Matthew 7:1-2.

Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:

I take very seriously how you treat others. Jesus explained this to you, “Whatever you do to the least of My brethren, you do unto Me.” Think about that next time you want to insult, be rude, say angry words, cheat, deceive, or hurt another.

In Jesus I came to you in the flesh and how did I treat others? With compassion. With love. With respect. With honor. I treated each person as important and worthy of attention. Jesus said, “No one who COMES TO ME, will I reject and cast away.” But many refused to come. But He never stopped healing, forgiving, edifying, teaching, preaching, correcting, directing, reaching out to the lost, and speaking My Words and doing My works. He stayed focused on His mission to go about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil. He came to undo the works of the devil and set the captives free.

And as He is so are you in this world. 1 John 4:17. He came not only to save you. heal you, and reconcile you with Me, but also to give you an example of living a righteous life now that He has made you righteous. You are stepping into the flow that He placed you in to go forward to do the greater works. You are starting where He left off. You are now on the other side of the Cross. A new day of grace has dawned. You are no longer under the law but under grace, and this is a much higher standard because I ask you to monitor not only your outer actions but your heart. It all starts in your heart but it does not stay there.

At the Passover meal the night before He died for your sins, after He had washed the dirt off His disciples’ feet, even those of Judas who betrayed Him that very night, Jesus told you, “For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.” John 13:15. He served all with love, even the one who betrayed Him.

Jesus did not come to be served but to serve, to give His life for you, that you may live unto Me, fully reconciled and beloved, free from the sins that so easily entangled and encumbered you. It is time to forget what lies behind and go forward in the great commission to go into all the world and tell the good news of salvation, of grace, and of the Kingdom. Not bad news, not condemnation, not harsh judgment, but grace—grace upon grace. Aways be gracious but never compromise with evil. Overcome evil with good, never with evil for evil.

Jesus loved. He forgave. He turned the other cheek, but He never compromised with evil to placate those trapped by the devil to do the devil’s diabolical plans.

Jesus showed you many examples of how to live the abundant life of love and thanksgiving. And He told you, “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” John 3:17. “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness. If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.” John 12:46-48 And that is the foundation of today’s Life Lesson from the Sermon on the Mount. And today, Jesus sets out spiritual laws, laws of the Kingdom, that cannot be broken without the consequences being applied.

“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7:1-5.

This is the way of love and mercy, but most especially to bring that back to yourself. As you sow you also reap. Sow to the flesh you will reap from the flesh, sow to the Spirit and you will reap from the Spirit.

By do not judge, I do not mean you are not to discern what is in line with My Word and what is not. I do not mean you are not to judge from various alternatives and things told you by others what is the proper and wise thing to do. I do not mean you are not to see to it that justice is done where there is injustice. Never permit evil to fester and grow in your life or that of someone in your household.

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8.

In this passage of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is teaching on unforgiveness and fault finding. Those who are overzealous to police everyone else but never themselves, looking at what My Son calls “specks” in others but missing the log in themselves.

I am sure you know, and it may even be you, that there are those who, whenever they hear a correction or a teaching, think it is for another person and not themselves. And they are quick to tell others about it and point it out to the one to whom they are applying it as a weapon rather than edification. They have set themselves as judges above the law.

“Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?” James 4:11-12.

Are you grateful for My mercy manifested in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection? If you have lived any length of time and have not known My Word since your mother’s womb as Timothy did, you have need of My mercy. Others also have the need of your mercy to make them whole. “Blessed are the merciful for mercy shall be theirs,” was a prior Life Lesson on the beatitudes. It is good if you go back and read that again.

And in this teaching Jesus is talking about looking back at yourself before you go after others. He said the same to the leaders who had caught the woman in adultery and brought her before Jesus to condemn and stone her to death. What did Jesus answer them? “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” John 8:7. And when He turned it back on them, they all left one by one beginning with the elders.

Prove yourselves doers of the Word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed by Me in what he does. James 1:22-25.

My apostle Paul understood that under grace you are free from condemnation and sin, but he knew that gave you a higher standard to walk in and it was one of self-discipline and self-control with the help of My Spirit in you and on you. Within the fruit of the Spirit being produced in your life there is self-control. And Paul presented it in the context of partaking of the Body and Blood of My Son and recognizing the Body that you have received.

“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” 1 Corinthians 11:23-26. This is a most wondrous gift of My Son. I so loved the world I gave you My Son so that you who believe in Him will never perish but have eternal life. And I did that for you while you were still sinners and rejecting Me and killing Him. But I found a way to cleanse and redeem you, making you holy and precious in My eyes—blameless and beyond reproach.

But do not treat this gift as meaningless and partake of it without honoring the Body that was given for you and which was offered to Me to take your sins, diseases, and pains on His own Body and free you from condemnation, punishment and the curse.

Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of My Son, your Lord, in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of Jesus, your Lord. I tell you if you come with your gift and there recall a member of the Body has anything against you, to go be reconciled with them first. But do not wait for Me to discipline you to get you walking in the way you should go, examine yourself, and in so doing you are to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Recognize of Whom you are partaking and the enormity of the gift and of the Covenant it has established. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if you judged yourselves rightly, you would not be judged. But when you are judged, you are disciplined by your good Shepherd that I raised from the dead by the Blood of the eternal Covenant so that you will not be condemned along with the world. 1 Corinthians 11:23-32. You are called in Christ to greater things than petty bickering and fault finding with one another. Beware when you do such things you do not destroy one another and the beautiful life of good deeds I have prepared for you in advance.

Your parents disciplined you for a short time as seemed best to them, but when I discipline you it is for your good, so that you may share My holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see Me, for I am holy and I make you holy. Walk in that holiness and truth. See to it that no one comes short of My grace; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled. Hebrews 12:10-15.

When you judge and find fault in an unloving way that is for no purpose but to tear down others as you seek glorification of yourself, this is immature and will ruin your life and the lives of those you go after. When you sit speaking against others, even your own brothers and sisters, do you think I am deaf to it? Or do you think I am like you in this? I will draw it up before your eyes.

Jacob’s son Joseph is a beautiful example of never condemning or speaking ill of others who actually did do evil to him. He did not condone or approve of what they did, he just refused to dwell on it or give it any place in his life. He explained to his brothers when they showed up to get what he had after they had thrown him out of their lives like disposable trash and sold him into a horrible life of slavery, “Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive. So therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. Genesis 50:19-21.

He had found that walking in a life free from unforgiveness and fault-finding gave Him a life filled with My favor, grace, and blessing that took him from the pit to the palace. But he was patient to wait in hope for thirteen years before his dreams came to pass.

“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you,” is a spiritual law I must follow.

When you criticize and judge others who are generous with what they give Me, such as building a lovely church for My glory, because they did not instead give that money to the poor (this is what Judas did with the woman who reverently brought her costly perfume to anoint Jesus), then I must look at what you are spending on yourself and others that could have been sold and given to the poor. If you had not required Me to change My standard on you, I would not have looked at you in this matter so critically.

When you do not forgive others, then that standard must be measured back to you even though I have forgiven you already in Christ. But you have cancelled that in your life. Why? Because I ask you to forgive others as I have forgiven you. And how do I forgive you? By the Blood of My Son, you are redeemed by His Blood, you are washed clean by His Blood, and it is His Blood that makes propitiation on the Mercy Seat for you. But His Blood did not just pay Me, He gave His life as a ransom for every person, whether they receive this gift or not is up to them but they are still forgiven by Me by the payment He made to Me. And the same is for you. So when you refuse to forgive another you are saying the Blood is not enough. And then I must apply this standard to you as well. You are wise to forgive.

And people who are continually finding fault with others are difficult to live with or be around. There is a reason I tell husbands and wives not to nag one another. There is a reason I tell parents not to nag their children but raise them in holy discipline. Do not be naggers but edifiers. Prophecy edifies, exhorts and encourages, but nagging and fault finding does nothing but beat someone down to a place of self-condemnation, resentment and no hope.

I love you. It is time to grow up. Stop the nagging, shaming, blaming, and fault-finding and instead celebrate My love with one another, speaking in hymns, psalms and inspired songs.

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. Colossians 12-17.