Luke 6:37-38 (NIV)
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
The last phrase :“For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you,” applies not just to the giving part of this teaching, but to every part.
- The measure that we use to judge others is the same measure that God will use to judge us. If we judge others harshly, then God will judge us just as harshly. If we judge others with our judgment tempered with mercy, then God will judge us mercifully. But overall, it would be best for each person if we simply withheld our judgment of others entirely, leaving that to God, and showed mercy instead. Then we will not end up being judged harshly by God for judging others harshly.
- If we condemn others, then we ourselves will be subject to the same condemnation. No one is without sin; no one is eligible to “cast the first stone” (John 8:7-8); no one can point a condemning finger at others without finding ourselves on the other end of God’s condemning finger.
- If we forgive others when they do us wrong, we will be forgiven when we do wrong; the same measure will be used. But if we withhold forgiveness, refusing to be merciful, we will find that forgiveness is withheld from us in turn (Matthew 6:14-15).
- And in the area of giving, the same measure will be used by God that we use toward others as well. If we are generous toward others we will receive generously from God’s hand. But if we are stingy toward others and grasping toward what God has blessed us with, we will find that we have cut ourselves off from God’s blessings, too.
This is not karma, or tit for tat. It is simply that way that God has set things up to work in His kingdom. The more that we, as God’s people, align ourselves with His loving, generous nature, the more blessings we will receive. But the more that we exhibit the attitudes of the world, harshly judging and condemning others, refusing to forgive, and being greedy toward our possessions, the more we will find ourselves cut off from God’s blessings, and subject to His judgment.
Father, no one who reads these words of Jesus can claim ignorance: the words are crystal clear and completely unambiguous. Help us, Lord, to really reflect Your character in the ways that we treat others, so that we can keep ourselves in the path of Your blessings. Amen.