Are You Judgemental

I realized today that I am judgmental. I was blind to it. I was praying about something that has bothered me since a few months after I was saved. God told me I was judging. So I am praying and searching my heart to see why these kinds of things bother me so much.

I was saved into a church with many rules. No makeup, no movies, women wore skirts, and so on. What I began to notice is that although people will not go to the movies, they would watch the movie on TV. The women darkened their eyelashes with hairspray. People found ways around the doctrine they professed to believe.

I saw a woman who did not drink spit out a bourbon hot dog she had been porking down. One of the women in the office mentioned there was bourbon in the sauce. I understood why she did it, but she just looked ridiculous to the unbelievers in the group. She had already eaten twelve of them, and swallowing one more would have been polite.

Today on Facebook I saw a girl share the cover of a book she was excited about reading. On the cover, there was a bare-chested man and a woman kneeling so that her head hit his belt buckle. The woman’s blouse was falling off her shoulders and down her breasts. I laughed and had to refrain from responding. This is the same girl that brought a conversation to a screeching halt one evening when she loudly announced she would NEVER see an R-rated movie. She made such a pucker face, everyone just stopped talking.

This kind of mindset drives me crazy. It makes me crazier when I see this in Christians. We get so much opposition from unbelievers, and when we are not true in all our actions, we just look stupid.

Christians have a core belief that Jesus is Lord, God’s Word is true, and baptism is important. Yet depending on the denomination and maturity level, we do have differing beliefs. We all walk in the light that we have and operate in the measure of faith God has given us.

I guess that I think if you have a belief like not wearing makeup or going to movies, then live with it and do not try to have fake makeup and watch the movies on television. The movie does not get any holier because it is on TV. If you do not watch R-rated movies, do not read R-rated books. Just be true to what you believe, and do not say things to impress other believers. The only one we have to impress is God.

But as I pray, God says to me “What is that to you? You do as I have instructed you.”