Don't judge people. You're judging me. Stop judging. Don't be so judgemental. If you judge others, you youself will be judged, you know. Judging isn't a very christian thing to do, after all.
Sure, I agree, judging IS bad.
But I'm getting tired of people referring to correction as judging.
Granted, lately around here there has been some judging going on. But even Christians, when corrected, will jump to the "don't judge me" wagon instead of actually trying to grow.
What makes correction not judging? I don't know, help me out here. But I will list what I think makes correction NOT judging.
1. Attitude of the corrector. If the attitude is, "I want this person to change because they are bugging me" you definitely have the wrong attitude. If you are confronting them because the holy spirit prompted you to, and you think you're not 'good enough' to correct anybody - you're probably a lot better off.
2. Relationship between the corrector and correctee - you have to know the other person. They could just be having a bad night and don't really need correction, just cool down time. But you don't know if you don't know them. The closer you are, the more likely it is to work - especially if you're willing to admit faults of your own to them so they don't feel like you're looking down at them.
3. Knowledge of the situation - if you don't really know everything that's going on, how can you correct someone? Do you really even know if they're doing something wrong? Should they be cut a little slack for some reason?
4. Professed Christianity of both parties - this is key to correction. If you're a christian, and the other party is not, you cannot expect them to live like a Christian. Even worse if they're a really nice, great person who happens to like to sleep with the same sex and you're a mean, greedy bastard who hates everybody but goes to church on Sunday for the sole purpose of yelling at homosexuals when you get out. They're not the one in need of correction, at least not by you. All that is going to do is drive people away.
5. Scripture as the basis - Scripture is good for correction. Says it right in scripture. If you don't have a verse to back yourself, you have nothing. Just stay out of it until you do have a verse. If this person or their behavior isn't important enough to get you to find a verse for, you shouldn't be the one correcting them or their behavior isn't important enough to correct. This is another reason why both should be Christians - if they're not, what's the Bible to them?
6. Offers to help, and asking for help - mostly, if you're willing to be an accountability partner, that means you're willing to invest in this person's life - you don't just want them to change and that be the end of it.
So, if you're trying to correct someone, and they pull the ol' judging card out of their sleeve, consider that it may be true. Are you judging this person? Or do you care about this person and want what's best for THEM? Did the holy spirit prompt you? If not, back off - it may not be the right time for it. If the holy spirit did prompt you, be as humble as possible - humility is key to everything. Your humility may do more good for this person than anything you actually tried to do.
But that's just my opinion. Not like I thought it was worth looking up a verse for or anything.
Correction is one of the hardest things to do as a Christian, but it can really make a difference in your life and someone else's. For good, or for bad.
(or for awesome!)