Wilderness Wisdom (3 of 4)

Mike Connell

Page 8 of 10
You're making a judgement on something you know nothing about, and the problem is, Christians judge unsaved people, and judge one another, and judge God, and judge themselves, and wonder why there's no power in their life. How can you have power in your life to influence people if there are judgements in the heart? Jesus said this: I have not come to judge anyone; but we who are much wiser, who represent Him, feel we're free to judge all sorts of people. We can judge pastors and leaders, we can judge other churches, we can judge one another, we can judge the unsaved, we judge the government. We've so set ourselves up, because of bitter roots in the heart, and a judgemental attitude. What it ends up in, you end up religious. You end up religious, having the form of Christianity, but no power in it. How can there be power in it? God's not into judging. He said: I didn't come to judge anyone! The Pharisees judged. Here's a woman caught in adultery; well you can't get it clearer than that, she's caught, we caught her. We caught her! That means they caught the man too - however we'll just overlook that for the moment. It's not convenient, because we actually want to focus on the woman, because that's the source of the sin! You getting the idea?

See, the whole Pharisaical spirit, and judgemental attitude and pride, and: we're better than, oh we'd never do that. Jesus just refused to judge her. Did she sin? Yes, He didn't judge her though. Did she get caught? Yes, but He didn't judge her. He just exposed the judgements in the others hearts, and then when they walked away He said: who's here to judge you? Well no one. He said: I'm not judging you either, but she was caught - but she was caught in adultery! Don't you understand, she was caught in adultery! You must pass sentence on her. She's got to be punished some way. We think that way, but that's not how God thinks. Jesus took all the punishment. He's not into judging people, and we're called to represent Him. Oh and the harshest people in the world, when someone fails, is a Christian. It's because of Pharisee spirit, pride, judgementalism, harshness. You have to repent of that. How can you bring the love of God, how can we manifest what Jesus is truly like? He doesn't judge people.

That's why every sinner, unsaved person felt really happy in His presence. Why? He never judged them. Did He have standards? Yes. Did He speak the truth? Yes. Did He try and fix their lives? No, He didn't. So you notice this person here, who has judgement in the heart, they're obsessed with fixing up someone else's fault. You notice he said: let me help you get the speck out of your eye, because I can see you've got a speck in there. There's a speck there, it needs to be removed, and I'm just the one to remove it; to which the reply is: well get the beam out of your eye first and, then we'll be able to have a go here. In other words: stay away from me. Your attitude makes it impossible for you to help me. Do you understand that? So we're not called to fix people up; we're called to love them, not judge them. They're responsible for their lives. The moment you try to fix someone, you've already judged them. You know what you've judged them? You are lacking. You are a mess. You need sorting out. That's just full of judgement. It's full of judgement, and who better than me to fix it! See, it's full of judgement, full of judgement. No love in that.

This is what surfaced in their hearts, so how do we deal with it? How can we deal with all this stuff? Everyone's gone a bit quiet. You know it's someone else I'm talking to don't you? You're thinking: dear God, why did I come this morning, should have stayed in bed. [Laughter] But it's okay. God wants us to hear this one. I've been hearing it all week, and I discovered some things in my heart that I needed to repent oh. Don't we all? I think for me, I grew up with many struggles over feeling rejected, and so when you live that way, and you're wounded inside, you live full of judgements. Your whole life is a judgement: do they like me? Do they not like me? Am I accepted, and yet your life's a mess. The strongest judgements were about myself, finding fault with myself, and judging myself. I had to repent of that. God, where are you? Judging God, see? Then you're figuring out other people, and judging other people. My life was riddled with it, come out of a religious background, riddled with it. I had to work to get my heart free of it. It's a constant effort, because it's easier to go into judgement and bitterness, than it is to go into grace and love and truth.