The Lord Jesus warns us to be careful that we do not judge, for we shall be judged by the exact same measure that we judge others.
In the Gospel of Matthew 7:1-5, we are told very clearly by the Lord Jesus that we must first take the plank out of our own eye before we attempt to remove the speck out of our brother's eye.
How often do we pass judgment on some poor tramp, or on a person who is down and out, yet we do not know the reason why he has got himself into this terrible predicament? Often these men come from extremely successful backgrounds but have been through a terrible disaster in their private lives—such as the death of a child or the breakup of a marriage—and they just cannot deal with it, so they literally give up on life.
Because a man, for example, is poor or without employment, that is no reason to judge him as being stupid. Sometimes, the man cannot obtain work because of a political situation or because he is simply overqualified! We need to exert mercy just like Jesus did, and try to restore him.
If you feel you cannot help someone who is down and out, then you need to start to seriously pray for him to find employment, rather than to judge him as being lazy or incompetent.
Remember, it is only by the grace of God that we are not in that poor man’s shoes, so let us concentrate in extracting the plank from our own eye first. After all, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
