Why We Judge Others and How to Overcome This Sinful Tendency.

Hello everyone. This blog post is about a common and hurtful sin: the sin of judging others. Now, judgment means different things to different people. To some people, the act of expressing any moral disapproval of another way of living and/or believing, even while being done with a kind spirit and from a loving heart, is considered judgment.

To others (and I would say that nearly everyone agrees on this), a judgmental attitude is an attitude of jumping to conclusions (almost always negative ones) about the motives and insights of other people based on their behavior. This kind of attitude is also one that tends to be critical and/or condescending, presumably because the one expressing it views himself or herself as superior in some way to the one he or she is analyzing. Additionally, this attitude can also involve spitefulness. In this blog post, I am talking about the solutions to a judgmental attitude as defined by the second definition I have provided here.

I want to first admit that I have been struggling with judgmental attitudes for a significant portion of my life. God has had me on a journey of understanding and overcoming this tendency for some time. In this blog post, I am sharing the insights that I have been blessed to have gained/am blessed to be gaining along this journey.

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Disclaimer: I am neither a trained nor a licensed mental health professional. Any mental-health-related things that I share in this blog post do not constitute professional mental health advice and, as such, should not be treated as professional mental health advice. I am not authorized to diagnose or treat any mental health conditions.

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Here are what I believe to be some of the root causes of judgment: pride, spitefulness, impatience, and fear.

Prideful judgment: Whenever we judge out of pride, we are doing it because we believe, or at least we want to believe (sometimes due to personal insecurities), that we are better than others. We enjoy comparing ourselves with others and “proving” to ourselves, and others, how good we are. However, we tend not to feel drawn to people who desire to be the best and to be better than everyone else. This isn’t the spirit that Jesus wants us to have. This spirit does not lend to true success in life. It does not promote genuine, self-sacrificing, and caring friendships.

We need to realize that it is the path of humility that leads to a truly fulfilling life.

” When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him; and he who invited you and him come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 14:8-11 (NKJV)

Spiteful judgment: We humans have selfish natures. Some of us judge at times because we are jealous or bitter and want to rub into people’s faces how we feel about them. This is absolutely against God’s loving ways. His love does no ill to its neighbor. (Romans 13:10) Coveteousness, bitterness, and unforgiveness are incompatible with God’s love.

Note: If you are in an abusive situation, please do the loving thing, which is to reach out for help. Here is a resource for people in abusive situations (victims of abuse) and also for abusive people who want to change. https://www.thehotline.org/ 

Impatient judgment: It’s easy to be judgmental sometimes…a lot of the time actually. When we see others behaving in ways that annoy, irritate, repulse, or otherwise trouble us, we can sometimes get triggered and react (this kind of leads into/overlaps with “fearful judgment”). We sometimes aren’t inclined to take the time to think about what it would feel like to be in other people’s shoes. We sometimes don’t feel like exercising a spirit of compassion or forbearance while encountering these disturbing behaviors.

People have different experiences in life, different personalities, different viewpoints, and different traumas. We are all so complex…and fragile. Things that are easy for us to deal with or overcome are far from easy for others to deal with or overcome. Things that don’t bother us are traumatizing to others. If Jesus, who is perfect, can be so patient and compassionate with us, we need to allow Him to help us to extend that same patience and compassion towards others.

We also need Him to comfort us and help us with our fears, which leads me on to “fearful judgment”.

Note: If you are in an abusive situation, please do the loving thing, which is to reach out for help. Here is a resource for people in abusive situations (victims of abuse) and also for abusive people who want to change. https://www.thehotline.org/ 

Fearful judgment: We’re often afraid of what and whom we’re ignorant of/unfamiliar with. We’re also often too afraid to investigate what we don’t understand… so we just judge instead. We also may have traumas in our pasts, and so when we meet people who remind us of those who hurt us in the past, or who remind us of our own troubling behaviors from our own pasts, and when we meet people who say things that trigger our insecurities, we can become critical of, or even manipulative towards them. We may sometimes try to fix the people around us when they say or do things that unsettle us so we can be at peace…but this doesn’t lead to peace. It leads to pain, strife, discord, and broken relationships. As the saying goes, “hurting people hurt people”…and sometimes very badly, I will add. There is no peace to be found in being unwilling to investigate and then believe the truth. There is no peace to be found in judging and/or manipulating people who trigger our fears and insecurities.

We need to bring our bleeding hearts to Jesus and become secure in Him. Then instead of fighting, criticizing, or controlling others, we will run to Jesus and drink deeply of His love and truth. Insecurity and open emotional wounds are constantly waiting to erupt. When triggers come along, we sometimes spew judgment, hurting those around us. But Jesus knows how to heal our souls, and as we learn to come to Him and to think His thoughts instead of our own, our insecurities and emotional wounds will calm down and heal, and our eruptions will cease. Then we will seek both to understand those who trigger us and to respect their individualities and their rights.

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In closing, the sin of unhealthy judging is a serious and damaging one, but God is able to forgive and transform judgmental people. I’m still in this process of transformation. I’ve made progress, but there is still more progress to be made, and sadly, there is progress that I am having to regain.

The safest course for all of us (I’m preaching to myself in this blog post too) is this:

“Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Luke 6:37 (NKJV)

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Lord,

We thank You for Your merciful love and grace which You give us, as undeserving as we are. You are so merciful to us, and yet we can be so unmerciful to one another. Please forgive those of us who are guilty of having and/or expressing judgmental attitudes and please do a work of healing in the hearts of those we have wounded.

Please remove arrogance, jealousy, anger, and bitterness from those of us who have been struggling with one or all of these sins. Please provide healing from the insecurities and fears that some of us are dealing with. Please give us compassion and understanding where we need it. Thank You so much for being so longsuffering with us. Please help us all to be more longsuffering with one another. Please give us the wisdom to know the difference between being judgmental and being discerning. Please help us to be wise and loving at the same time. Please show us how to be, because we don’t know how to be without You. Thank You so much for hearing and answering this prayer according to Your will, as You have promised to do. 1 John 5:14

In Jesus’ Name Amen

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I hope that this blog post has inspired all of us with hope. God wants to set us free from sin! I also am inviting you all to stay tuned for my next blog post in my series on Bible Prophecy. It will be entitled: “Bible Prophecy Studies: Daniel 10 part 2”.

Blessings. 🙂

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Acknowledgments:

a) I quoted Luke 14:8-11 and Luke 6:37 from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

b) I gained some of the insights I shared in the “Impatient judgment” section from this quote.

c) Some of the insights that I shared in the “Fearful judgment” section were both confirmed by and expanded as a result of, reading this article. I don’t agree with everything in this article, but I do believe that the author makes some very accurate and helpful observations. This article was very impactful for me.

d) I also gained some of the insights I shared in the “Fearful judgement” section from watching testimonies on YouTube of former hate group members who have since left their former ways of thinking and living.