Since I became a believer at age 30, until now at 63, I have not , in or out of churches, met a single Christian, who was not judgemental in one way or another, toward certain groups or individuals....The first fellowship I attended began quickly teaching me those same ways, as in, anything at all they said God disapproved of, we were to turn up our noses at those people as they were 'less' than us....along those lines....Needless to say, I did not stay there too long, but to my amazement, I found this same issue everywhere I went.........Such ego's, such arrogance, such pride, such deep condemnation toward certain members of society.........I never lasted long in any of the fellowships, as it hurt me so deep in my heart every time I came across this, as I knew it was wrong, but was aware that I too had a lot of it in me, even things I had not had previous to becoming a believer, so I had actually gotten worse !!!
It took many years, first the willingness to listen to the Lord, for Him to undo a lot of what I had wrongly taken into my being......He has now shown me in many different ways, why it is so detrimental to us, to judge those who's lives we cannot live for even one minute, and therefore are ill equipped to judge......But we are also hurting ourselves when we do this, much to our enemies delight...........when we choose to stand side by side with the enemy and become accusers along with him, I can assure you, that will do us no good at all, and we must do all we can to resist this, fleshly, pre - Jesus' payment of all sin, response we take, toward those we see doing things we deem sinful.
A lot of Christians I have met have had a scale whereby they judge peoples sins.....Some believe that all 'gay' people will go to hell, but their own gossiping is quite fine....They have a sort of little sin, big sin scenario...but all seem so pre-occupied with sin, when the Bible tells us to consider ourselves 'dead TO sin'.
I have surely seen more time spent on sin, judgement and condemnation in churches and fellowships than I have the Love, the gentleness and the forgiveness of the Lord, or for that matter , even the reality of the Lord.
I know it's not easy when we see or hear of an act which we deem awful. Instantly our flesh will rise up in either indignation, anger or revulsion or some other emotion based reaction, and often it is from a perspective of vengeance that we go forward into our judgements of the people involved.
But we have been called to a higher life, one we have barely scratched the surface of, because we still have such an issue with sin, law, doctrines, traditions and men's teachings but very little actual contact with the only One who can help us in this 'New Life', to become this New Creation, which Christ was the firstborn....One which is beyond the law, sin, death of spirit and so on......One who is supposed to learn and mature into the fullness of the Love of our Father, and of Jesus, who gave His life for us.....somehow to be raised above all the futility and pettiness of human reactions, understandings and self will.
Please don't get me wrong, I am not at all saying we should embrace awful behavior...I am however saying, please be careful how you judge others, even if you think you are well within your 'rights' to do so.....Seek Him on this matter, it certainly is an important matter which is far too often neglected.
