Who Am I to Judge?

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time now. I know that Jesus gave this command not to judge anyone for we shall be also judged and the measure we give when we pass on our judgment to anyone will be the same measure God will use against when its already time for Him to pass His judgment. The bottomline is, it’s wrong to judge.

But then whenever I share the Gospel and tell people to repent and turn back to God or else they will go to hell, I can’t help but feel guilty or condemned for telling people that we are sinners and not fit for heaven. Who am I to say that they can’t go to heaven anyway? My sister even told me once who am I to judge people and tell them whether they are going to heaven or not? Though I am very sure that the Bible tells us that can tell who will go to heaven or not according to God’s standards, I chose not to answer her back so to avoid debate. Besides, I really don’t know how to answer her appropriately during that time.

Then I’ve heard the same word again recently from the most prominent religious leader in the world today. He said, ‘if a person is gay and seek the Lord and is of good will, then who I am judge.’
At first glance these words sound true and inspiring. But when I’ve heard this word for the first time, I really felt uncomfortable and thought that there’s something wrong with the statement. First and foremost, the Bible has made it clear that homosexuality is a sin and God said that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God (see 1 Corinthians 6:9). We are also commanded to speak the truth in love so we need to tell the people that it is wrong to practice homosexuality.

My point is, yes it is true that we are told not to judge people. Instead, we commanded to love them. However, the Bible also said that love does not delight in evil but rejoices in truth (1 Corinthians 13) so part of loving them is telling the truth and not tolerating the wrongdoing.

Going back to the statement ‘who am I to judge?’, I felt convinced that telling people what is wrong or right according to God’s standard is just the right thing to do. However, I also can’t shrug off the feeling of being judgmental for doing so, so I asked God if am I really being judgmental?

I Praise the Lord for some enlightenment a few days ago, when I read these words during my bible reading:

Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! – 1 Corinthians 6:2-3

So I thought, we are really meant to judge the world. But this statement should be taken carefully because the Bible said we are to judge the world, not people, specially if these people do not know the truth yet. The only time we are allowed to ‘judge’ people (i.e. correct or discipline them) is when the people we are dealing with belong to the same body of Christ (1 Cor. 5:12).
So for those who don’t know the truth, we are commanded to stand firm and speak the truth plainly and boldly, out of love. Because the Bible said, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.’ (Romans 10:17)
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? (Romans 10:14-15)

So my conclusion, we are not being judgmental when we preach the Gospel. We are just plainly delivering God’s message. Judgment comes to people when they heard the message and yet they refuse to believe and accept the truth. And so this has become my motivation for preaching the Gospel.