One of the commandments of Jesus: “Judge not.” The Old Testament lesson for today tells us why: “Not as man sees does God see, because he sees the appearance but the LORD looks into the heart.” Of course we make judgments all the time. Is this good for me? Should I change jobs? The commandment of Jesus forbids a particular kind of judging — about the value and motivations of another individual. We certainly can judge whether this person is the kind that I want to hang out with. And we can judge whether their actions are on conformity with the will of God. What we should not judge is whether who they are or how they act comes from a bad intention. As they Bible says, only God looks into the heart and knows why anyone does what they do. So we can judge that what someone does is not of God but we cannot judge why they would do such a thing and who that makes them to be. In law there is a persumption of innocence until proven guilty. In God there is a presumption that the other is a child of God no matter how they are behaving.
