WORDS MATTER:  SHIFT OUR JUDGEMENT TO FAITH

Don’t criticize and speak evil about each other, dear brothers. If you do, you will be fighting against God’s law of loving one another, declaring it is wrong. But your job is not to decide whether this law is right or wrong, but to obey it. Only He who made the law can rightly judge among us. He alone decides to save us or destroy. So what right do you have to judge or criticize others?

JAMES 4:11-12 (LB)  

Don’t criticize, and then you won’t be criticised. For others will treat you as you treat them. And why worry about a speck in the eye of a brother when you have a board in your own? Should you say, ‘Friend, let me help you get that speck out of your eye,’ when you can’t even see because of the board in your own?

MATTHEW 7:1-4 (LB)  

Only He who made the law can rightly judge among us. He alone decides to save us or destroy. So what right do you have to judge or criticize others?

JAMES 4:12 (LB)

Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls.

ROMANS 14:4 (NKJ) 

Do not spread slanderous gossip among your people. Do not stand idly by when your neighbor’s life is threatened. I am the Lord.

LEVITICUS 19:16 (NLT)

The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts.

PROVERBS 18:8 (NIV)

Gossip is the devil’s radio.  Don’t be his DJ.

(Adrian Rogers) 

Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.

EPHESIANS 4:29 (The Message)

Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.

EPHESIANS 4:29 (NLT)

Before you speak, ask yourself:  Is it kind, is it true, is it necessary?  If not, let it be left unsaid.

(Bernard Meltzer)

1. WE CAN RESTRICT A PERSON’S FUTURE BY OUR JUDGEMENT.

A troublemaker plants seeds of strife; gossip separates the best of friends.

PROVERBS 16:28 (NLT)

Don’t bad-mouth each other, friends. It’s God’s Word, his Message, his Royal Rule, that takes a beating in that kind of talk. You’re supposed to be honoring the Message, not writing graffiti all over it. God is in charge of deciding human destiny. Who do you think you are to meddle in the destiny of others?

JAMES 4:11-12 (The Message)

2. WE CAN RESTRICT OUR FUTURE BY OUR JUDGEMENT.

But as it is written in the Scriptures: “No one has ever seen this, and no one has ever heard about it. No one has ever imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”

1 CORINTHIANS 2:9 (NCV)