We can all agree nobody likes being judged. Maybe one our most well-known and often used phrases is "Don't you judge me!" Well Planet Fitness got it right! Planet Fitness is famous for being the "Home of the Judgment Free Zone."
Now, the words "Judgment", "Opinion", & "Conclusion" all mean essentially the same thing. In the Bible God repeatedly directs us to suspend our judgments in exchange for His, and I want to explain why this is so practical for us all.
First, I think we can agree there are many things in life I might call negative that you might call positive, and vice versa. And we can all relate to having life events coming our way that we would call threatening, or that make us feel afraid or apprehensive. In other words, we all experience many things we judge as "negative" or "bad" or even "evil." Well, what's wrong with that? Isn't that normal? Yes, but stick with me now.
In the beginning God made two trees (Genesis 2:9, 16-17), and what we know as the "forbidden tree" was called the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You could think of it as the tree of the knowledge of "right and wrong" or "good and bad." Evil, bad, wrong... all the same thing. So watch this now: God didn't want us to be like Him, playing the judge as we go through life, and tagging events as "positive" and "negative"..."good" or "bad". Why you ask? Because we might conclude something is negative that God actually calls positive. So we seek to avoid the negative in favor of the positive and thereby miss God in the process.
Consider what God has done:
Who can straighten
what he has made crooked?
When times are good, be happy;
but when times are bad, consider this:
God has made the one
as well as the other.
Therefore, no one can discover
anything about their future.(Ecclesiastes 7:13-14)
So "the bad" might really be God trying to conform you to the image of His Son (Romans 1:29). Judging the events of your life as "good and bad" and seeking to increase the good is simply human morality, and morality is the greatest enemy of the Christian life.
What if the thing you've called bad and avoided your whole life is the thing God is trying to use to set you free? That doesn't mean it feels good. True, divine agape love means doing what's best for the object loved even if it's painful in the moment. When we face a current event that we judge as negative, what's often happening is that our flesh is pulling a file from our brain that contains similar information relating to the event at hand. Then the negative emotions rise to the surface and we run! But God is actually trying to confront our flesh to draw out the best in us, the Christ in us, which is what we really want. These are God's ways. Don't be mistaken... Every revelation of Christ is preceded by a revelation of self. The greatest temptation out of hell is your desire to be free from temptation forever. God is not fighting the devil; He's using him. The devil is but God's master fencer to teach you to handle your weapons!
Check out the diagrams attached to better understand how judgments could be corrupting your soul. Please feel free to contact us with more questions or if these sketches are unintelligible
How about you? Do you find yourself judging the circumstances of your life as good or bad? We all do this, but God wants us to let Him reprogram our minds to His ways. Give us a call at 864-224-5557 or click on the counseling button below. We’d love to help you understand how the hurts in your life may be the very thing God is using to conform you to the image of His Son.