Am I Being Harsh?

I once heard it said that we harshly judge others by their actions, but we gracefully judge ourselves by our intentions. Does that sound true for you? It certainly did for me the first time I heard it. We need wake-up-calls from time to time that the scales we are using aren’t always well-balanced.

One of the easiest places to fall into this self-defeating cycle is in our home. I didn’t do the laundry because I was tired from a long day at work… but why didn’t she do the dishes? We tell our kids not to fight over their toys, and then we fight about money. I could go on, but I think you get the picture – we judge ourselves by our intentions, and others by their actions. This almost always makes us look better than we really are.

Romans 12:3 tells us that we shouldn’t think more highly of ourselves than we ought to. Paul tells us to check the scales we are using, to use sober judgement with ourselves, to remember that Jesus has already stacked the scales of grace in our favor… so that we don’t refuse others the grace that we are entitling ourselves to.