Jesus says regarding judging – Don't. The average Christian is the most
penetratingly critical individual. Criticism is a part of the ordinary faculty
of man; but in the spiritual domain nothing is accomplished by criticism. The
effect of criticism is a dividing up of the powers of the one criticized; the
Holy Ghost is the only One in the true position to criticize, He alone is able
to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter
into communion with God when you are in a critical temper; it makes you hard
and vindictive and cruel, and leaves you with the flattering unction that you
are a superior person. Jesus says, as a disciple cultivate the uncritical
temper. It is not done once and for all. Beware of anything that puts you in
the superior person's place.
There is no getting away from the penetration of Jesus. If I see the
mote in your eye, it means I have a beam in my own. Every wrong thing that I
see in you, God locates in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17-20). Stop having a measuring rod for other
people. There is always one fact more in every man's case about which we know
nothing. The first thing God does is to give us a spiritual spring-cleaning;
there is no possibility of pride left in a man after that. I have never met the
man I could despair of after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of
God.