Our Daily Bread Devotional 19th June 2018
Topic: Impaired Judgment
Read: Matthew 7:1–6, Bible in a Year: Nehemiah 12–13; Acts 4:23–37
Key Verse: Do not judge, or you too will be judged. Matthew 7:1
Message: I’ve been quick to judge anyone I saw walking in the street while staring at a phone. How could they be so oblivious to the cars about to hit them? I’ve told myself. Don’t they care about their own safety? But one day, while crossing the entrance to an alleyway, I was so engrossed in a text message, that I missed seeing a car at my left. Thankfully, the driver saw me and came to an abrupt stop. But I felt ashamed. All of my self-righteous finger-pointing came back to haunt me. I had judged others, only to do the same thing myself.
Our Daily Bread Devotional 19th June 2018 – Impaired Judgment
My hypocrisy is the kind of thinking that Jesus addressed in the Sermon on the Mount: “First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:5). I had a huge “plank”—a blind spot through which I judged others with my own impaired judgment.
“For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged,” Jesus also said (7:2). Recalling the disgusted look on the driver’s face that day, after having to make an abrupt stop when I walked in front of the car, I’m reminded of the disgusted looks I gave others engrossed in their phones.
Our Daily Bread Devotional 19th June 2018 – Impaired Judgment
None of us is perfect. But sometimes I forget that in my haste to judge others. We’re all in need of God’s grace.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, please help me be quicker to console or encourage, and slower to judge someone else.
Be slow to judge others.
Read: Our Daily Bread Devotional 18th June 2018
Our Daily Bread Devotional 19th June 2018 was written By Linda Washington [Our Daily Bread Ministries.]