Just like me…

Romans 2:1-3 God’s Righteous Judgment 

1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. ² We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. ³ Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?

In all humility I wish to share with others what I have learned about “conceivably” being wronged or hurt and my natural reactions to this.

My perceived wrongs has caused me to react in sort of a defensive posture, I have at times aggressively lashed out at the perpetrator in thinking I was doing right; but what I didn’t see was actually that I had been wounded in my pride, and had even justified myself thinking I was correct to do this “in the Lord” even when applying Bible verse in shoring up my positions! This was due to years of hurt, but now I realize in humility just what Romans 2:1-3 is speaking about; namely my pride of life, and feeling I needed to defend myself!

Yet, what I have learned is that I needn’t have to defend myself, even if I have been wronged!

My Lord Jesus Christ was wronged by the worst, and sometimes by the best of humanity. He never lashed out in his human pride, but rather “took it on the chin” so to speak; and He was God incarnate! The Lord understood that all of us had no idea about what we are doing naturally – and asked for our forgiveness from the Father, even while hanging on the cross!

Pride will not allow us to love others as ourselves, as we justify ourselves in independence of what the Holy Spirit is trying to teach us about our great need for Christ in our lives!  Pride allows us to become as the Religious Pharisees had become, and no amount of human dictating the truth, love and mercy of God to a fallen word, has any effect upon a hardened heart.

Therefore, if we are truly following Christ, we must practice this in (true) humility realizing that we are no more able than another to be totally devoid from our own fallen natures – no matter how pious we attempt to be! We cannot truly look past the faults of others and love them unconditionally like Christ did us; without first coming to the point of being broken, crushed, and even humiliated within the confines of our own soul!

If one is unwilling to yield to this type of correction of God, they can never truly forgive others nor even forgive themselves, and as a result, are unable to “love others as themselves”.

That’s what I have recently learned, (perhaps none too late) as my almost 90-year-old father sits in his hospital bed with fluid around his heart and battling pneumonia.

May the Lord forgive me in not understanding my great need to turn over all my pain and misgivings of a man who has always given of himself to the fullest measure; despite his own needs of his soul: which in some ways – are just like me!