Mercy I Desire

Most of us do a great deal of judging. Some of us have embraced it as a way of life. We do it with our tone of voice, with the look around our eyes and mouth when we speak to our husband, our wife, our children, our neighbors, our associates at work (or when we speak about them behind their backs). There are those who take demonic delight in speaking in judgmental terms. A woman at a card party was talking about a member of the bridge club who wasn’t there. She said, “I wouldn’t say anything about her unless it was good. And boy, is it good!” She then went on to gossip about the absent woman in a very judgmental way.

We all do this, more than we realize. But Jesus is here to tell us once more that “To avoid judgment,” we must “stop passing judgment.” “Your verdict on others will be the verdict passed on you,” Jesus says. “The measure…