Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.  Matthew 7:1-2

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Luke 6:37

The two verses above come from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.  Of course, we call it by that name, he didn’t.  The verses have been misused on many occasions to protest any admonition or rebuke levied against an individual’s sin.  We all know the phrase, “Don’t judge me!”   If “judging,” in the sense that Jesus used it, meant calling another person to repentance, then Paul sinned on numerous occasions in his letters to the churches, as well as Peter and James and other writers of the New Testament.  These writers often pointed out sins in the churches to whom they were writing as they called them to repentance and, on occasion, even called out people by  name.

So, if this is not a prohibition of pointing out the sins of others, what does it mean?  It’s an important question and one that needs to be seriously considered in the area of spiritual freedom and spiritual warfare.  Let’s again settle what it doesn’tmean. In his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul commanded, “I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man from among you” (1 Cor. 5:9-13).

Jesus says, “Judge not…”  Paul says “Judge.”  Are these two teachings contradicting one another?  We believe that the Holy Spirit directed Paul’s writings and that Jesus spoke what he heard from the Father, so these cannot be contradictory commands because God does not contradict himself. What, then, do they mean?

Typically, the issue in spiritual matters is the heart and I believe that is the issue that settles the matter on judging.  When Paul commands us to judge those within the church, we are not making personal judgments but are submitting to the judgment of God’s word.  If a man or woman is living a life that is clearly contradictory to scripture and will not repent after leadership has gone to them, shown them what Jesus had to say about their lifestyle, and prayed with them, then some form of discipline is in order.  The key is that the “judgment” is out of concern for their salvation and the spiritual health of the body of Christ.  There is no self-righteous component in which church leaders are feeling morally superior to the person caught in sin.  Love is motivating the discipline in the same way that love motivates a parent to discipline a rebellious child.

The spirit of this “judgment” is revealed in Paul’s letter to the Galatians when he says, “Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each onelooking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” (Gal.6:11-3).  This verse describes the heart of proper judgment.  The Word is the standard rather than our own biases. We approach the individual with gentleness and a sense of our own weakness and vulnerability to sin. We typically judge the behavior rather than the heart or the person, because only God knows all the issues behind the sin.  We still deal with the sin, because unrepented sin puts the person’s eternal destination in jeopardy and eventually can lead others into sin as well. The goal of proper judgment is always redemption motivated by love.

The judgment Jesus speaks of is a personal judgment based on a feeling of superiority or a desire to hurt the other person. We tend to go past the behavior and simply label another person as if we know their thoughts and their heart.  Instead of saying that a young woman is involved in sexual immorality, we simply label her as a slut…verbally or in our own minds. At that point, we have made her “less than” us, although we probably have another variety of sin in our own life that we justify or don’t recognize.  That judgment exalts us and diminishes the other person.  We don’t feel concern, but rather contempt. We don’t love, but reject.  We judge the person’s worth and value, rather than letting God be the judge.

Here is the danger.  When we judge with that heart, we align ourselves with Satan who is the accuser of the brethren. Secondly, Jesus says that “with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged.”  When we judge others with a heart of moral superiority, we open ourselves up to the enemy.  We have not shown mercy or forgiveness.  When we judge another, in this context, we sin and the unrepented sin is an open door to the enemy.  Not only that, but once we have cast another person in a certain light through judgment, we typically dismiss all evidence to the contrary.

The most difficult thing in marriage counseling is to deal with judgment.  Once a spouse has judged their partner as selfish, hateful, manipulative, perverse, etc., it is difficult for them to see their spouse in any other light.  Even when that spouse is changing, the one who has made a judgment will not see the change or credit the change.  Eventually, the “judged” spouse will give up trying to be different because they sense that whatever they do will never be enough. The spouse who has made the judgment will always feel superior to the other and their disdain or disrespect will poison the relationship.  Believe me, Satan will work hard to justify and maintain that judgment in the mind of the spouse who has made it.

This kind of judgment, because it is sin, gives the devil a legal right to afflict us.  That is how our judgment comes back on us.  If we judge someone to be a perverse person, Satan can treat us as a perverse person. If we judge someone to be selfish, the enemy can deal with us as a selfish person. In finding freedom, people not only need to repent of active sin and unforgiveness, but of judgments as well. In the same way that we repent of sin and renounce it, we must also repent of judgments and renounce them before we can dismiss every demon. Again, this is not a denial of sin, but a change of heart toward the sinner.

Once again, identifying behavior as sinful, based on the word of God, is not the same as labeling a person and thinking less of them because of our personal agendas.  The kind of judgment the apostle Paul calls us to honors the word of God and humbly seeks restoration of a person caught in sin. The judgment Jesus warns us against, actually diminishes the chance for restoration because we feel no obligation to try to redeem that person we have labeled and often seek to have others join us in our judgment against him or her.  So, as we examine ourselves to see if we are in alignment with the Father’s will, we may want to scan our own hearts and history to see if judgment is opening a door for the enemy or is keeping us from reconciling a relationship.  If we are ministering freedom, to others, judgment is an area that needs to be explored.

When you get into the business of helping people deal with their brokenness through counseling, prayer, and deliverance, you are never more like Jesus.  However, there is a side effect to going down that road.  As you choose to help people deal with their wounds and their pasts, more and more broken folks will show up in your life. Broken people know broken people, and if you are caring and helpful, they will send others your way. Undoubtedly, God will be entrusting some of these individuals to you so that you can dispense his grace in their lives.

Let me warn you, however, that Satan will also deposit some of these folks in your life.  Those individuals will have the uncanny ability to suck the life out of you for months and months and distract you from some very important things that God has ordained for you.  Many of us that are drawn to healing ministries have a spiritual gift of mercy and compassion.  That’s the way it should be. But sometimes, that mercy gift morphs into a “rescuer” theme that develops in our lives and we can find ourselves in bondage to a mindset that feels responsible for the well-being of every victim or broken person we encounter.

In itself, being a rescuer is very Christ-like. After all, Jesus came to seek and save the lost.  That sounds like rescue work.  I would agree, but Jesus also set some very healthy boundaries around his rescue missions. You should as well. He displayed some of those when he went to the Pool of Bethesda and asked the lame man, “Do you want to be healed?”  Whenever we are working with broken people, that is a question we need to keep in mind. The truth is that not everyone wants to be healed, although everyone says they do.  Some do want to be healed but do not want to do any work to get to that place.  They want you to heal them and then want you to take up their mat and carry it for them.

Over the years, in our ministry at Mid-Cities, we have settled on a position that clearly states, “If you want to change, you have to do the work.”  Our belief is that when it comes to healing and freedom, God won’t do the work for us but he is more than happy to do it with us.  When Israel finally made it to Canaan, God could have cleared the land of Israel’s enemies with one sweep of his hand. He could have sent plagues, a band of destroying angels, or displayed any number of other supernatural acts to drive the tribes from the land.  Instead, he required Israel to go to battle.  He would lead them and assure their victories, but they still had to endure the hardships of warfare.  They had to face the enemy, check their faith, and swing the sword.  In doing so, their character was refined and their relationship with God was enhanced.

People who want their lives to be transformed have to fight some battles.  Our job is to equip them to fight and, at times, fight along with them. But our goal should be to equip them to engage with God and defeat the enemy on a daily basis or simply make better choices in the future.  Those who fall into the trap of becoming a rescuer tend to make the individuals they are rescuing dependent on them  – their wisdom, their gifts, and their resources. Part of the trap may be that the cycle may feel good to the rescuer because he or she see is making a difference in the life of a person and also because he or she enjoys the gratitude and admiration of those they are rescuing.  However, they are not teaching them to fight and they are not teaching them to depend on Jesus.  Everyone needs to be rescued from time to time, but when being rescued becomes a lifestyle for broken people, there is something wrong.

My wife Susan has a very wise saying when it comes to ministry to broken people. She says, “If you are doing more work than they are, something is wrong.” What you notice about Jesus is that his compassion met people where they were, but he did not leave them there.  He didn’t beg people to follow him or stay in one place long to make sure people followed through on his prescriptions for life. He pointed them to God, gave them godly counsel, got them started and then let them be responsible for their next steps.

There are those who truly want to change and are ready to do the work.  Invest in them.  There are others who want you to fix them and their life, but won’t do their part. They want God to magically change their hearts, their minds, and their circumstances while they sit and watch. God doesn’t work that way and neither should we. Let that person contact you when he or she is actually ready to do the work.  Others don’t really want to change, but simply love the attention and care they get as person after person pours into them without seeing much progress. That person needs to repent. And still others, want you to take away their pain but don’t want to give up some sin in their lives that has created the pain. They simply want you to rescue them from the consequences of their actions without changing their behaviors or choices. These too need to repent.

When you have begun to minister to a person who needs healing and freedom, you may have to carry most of the load initially. But that person should soon begin to make progress.  He should be engaged in the fight.   She should be in the word and in prayer.  That person should also make your appointments on time and consistently and must be willing to start aligning his or her life with God’s word and his commands.

Too often, our mercy gift kicks in and we keep meeting, keep rescuing, keep rescheduling for weeks and months because we feel responsible to “save the person.”  It is often necessary to remember that Jesus is their Savior, not us. Too often we enable irresponsible behavior and allow them to continue to see themselves as helpless victims who always need a hero to rescue them from the dragons in their lives.  Too often we keep them from experiencing the very consequences that would have been their best teachers.  God does not require that we fix broken people.  That is his job.  Our job is to give them godly counsel, point them to Jesus, and equip them to live as children of the king if they are motivated to do so.  We are to be responsible to them, but not for them.

As hard as it is, there are times when we just have to cut someone loose to whom we have tied ourselves because we realize we are trying to plant God’s seed in poor soil. No real fruit is being produced. The soil may improve over time, but for the moment, there are better investments for the wisdom, experience, mercy, and gifts God has entrusted to your stewardship.

I think we need to see ourselves as mentors or coaches rather than rescuers.  As we enter into a mentoring or coaching relationship with a broken person, we need to kindly and gently set expectations for growth and the work they need to be doing in order for authentic change to take place. That person should know that our goal is to make him/her dependent on Jesus, not on us and for them to become mature in their faith.  Growth and change will be an expectation in order for us to continue to disciple them. If it becomes apparent that you are working with a person who does not want to change or is not ready to change, you can still love them but you don’t have to pour into them.  We are certainly not requiring perfection.  After all, Jesus had to display a great deal of patience with the twelve who often seemed like spiritual knuckleheads, but they were on a growth trajectory and their hearts truly desired to be men who pleased the Master. I also suspect Jesus has had to be patient with us and give us second chances. But if the person you are pouring into is not displaying change or doing the work over a period of time, you may need to invest in someone else.

I’m not really writing this to instruct you in mentoring, as much as I am wanting to encourage you to avoid the rescuertrap and to even give you permission to cut yourself loose from unfruitful relationships that are keeping you from investing in other relationships that will bear great fruit and give you life rather than sucking life from you.  Remember, God sends some people your way, but so does Satan. A wise person will learn to discern who wants to be healed and who truly doesn’t.

I was brought to faith in a fellowship that had a stated goal of reproducing the New Testament church in our day.  That was actually a thought that gained traction in the 1800’s long after the Reformation had opened the way for numerous denominations to spring up and splinter the body of Christ.  The idea was that unity could be restored in the body if we took the Bible as our only source of authority and reproduced the church as we saw it in the New Testament.  One of the things they looked for were patternsthat emerged in the way the church functioned.

A cornerstone passage for the goal was taken from Paul’s second letter to Timothy. “What you heard from me, keep as the patternof sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us (2 Tim.1:13-14).  The 1^stcentury church met on the first day of the week, so we must.  The church in the New Testament had evangelists, elders and deacons, so me must. The early churched immersed believers in water (baptism) so we must. You get the idea and it makes perfect sense. The problem was that we picked some patterns to follow and dismissed others that made us uncomfortable.

For instance, Jesus established a very discernible pattern in his ministry. In fact, it was a pattern that would mark the Messiah and his followers.  When John, the baptizer, found himself in prison, he began to doubt his own judgment about the Messiah.  He sent some of his followers to confirm that Jesus was who John believed him to be. “At that very time, Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (Lk.7:21-23). He not only preached the kingdom, but demonstrated the kingdom as well.

He instructed others to do the same. “These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons” (Matt. 10:5-8).  Later, he sent out seventy-two others with the same instructions. Then, in “The Great Commission,”  Jesus commanded his followers to go into all the world and to make disciples of all nations by teaching them to obey everythingthat he had commanded them to do.  Whatever Jesus had commanded his apostles and close circle of disciples to do, they were to teach others to do.  He doesn’t seem to make any exceptions in his teachings.  Therefore, the pattern for all believers was to preach the kingdom and then demonstrate it with signs and wonders.

When Jesus sent out the twelve and the seventy-two to represent him throughout Israel, they could not truly re-present Jesus without doing the works he did.  Neither can we re-present Jesus without doing those same works. There are some who believe such authority was given only to a few in the first century.  However, Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the Son may bring glory to the Father” (Jn.14:12-14, emphasis added).

Jesus clearly stated that anyone who has faith in him will do what he had been doing and even greater things.  He posted no shelf life and no expiration date on his offer because it was a matter of bringing glory to the Father. In addition, Jesus gave gifts to the church through the Holy Spirit by which “the household of God” could exercise authority and demonstrate the Kingdom as well.  That is how the church is to represent Jesus. We can do so because Jesus was given all authority by the Father and we, as believers, share in that authority,

Remember that the Father raised Jesus from the dead and “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion” (Eph.1:20-21).  Then “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in heavenly realms” (Eph.2:6). In the same vein, Paul wrote, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority” (Col.2:9-10). If you can receive it, the truth is that we also are seated above all rule, authority, power, and dominion and have been given his fullness because we are seated with him.  We possess that authority now.

The church’s failure to push back the borders of darkness as Jesus did is not due to any lack in what Jesus has provided, but due to a lack of faith or understanding by God’s people, so that we don’t claim and operate in the power and authority reserved for us. Until we are committed to reproduce the New Testament Church in its fullness, we will never be all that Jesus wants us to be and his glory will not cover the earth until we demonstrate his glory through his authority and power.  No matter how many “patterns” we reproduce, we will not truly reproduce the church Jesus died for, without the exercise of his power and authority as we share the gospel.