Judge Yourself Harshly?
By Gayle Hoone
Questions: Do you judge yourself harshly?
Have you ever considered that judging produces accusations, slander, gossip, and evil?
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Self-judgment censures [finds fault, criticizes, reprimands, disapproves, condemns, and scorns] like a judge in a court room. Judging one’s self means to try one’s case that is to pronounce and pass sentence on one’s self. Judging is an attempt to resolve an inner conflict by mentally forming an opinion, and a conclusion. It’s a way to make sense, to close the case. The problem is, self-judgment mentally judges self with self. This judgment lacks gathered real forensic evidence. And, if the facts [external evidence] are gathered, this judging self with self distorts the reality of those facts.
Our brain, like a computer, has been programmed from the womb and throughout our formative years. How our brain is programmed is how it thinks, evaluates, and comes to a conclusion. If I grow up in a negative environment I will think pessimistically, I will judge myself harshly. If I grow up in a rather silent household, I will tend to live alone in my forming thoughts with isolated opinions void of feedback and knowledge. If I grew up in an emotionally charged atmosphere, my thinking can become obsessive, causing me to personalize everything, its all about me so, judging my self with self is like being my own arresting officer, prosecutor, defending attorney, judge, and jury all in my own mind.
When we judge we mentally determine, select and weigh by assumptions (condemnation before investigation) in our own mind, without the gift of true forensics, the literal untwisted facts.
This results in self-centeredness… 
1. Self condemnation - judges self harshly causing an oversensitivity, immaturity, and helplessness (victims compensate by swinging from passive to aggressive to passive).
2. Mental self approval of ourselves developing egotism [selfishness], grandiosity [pretentiousness], and narcissism [self important, self absorbed].
3. Both self approval and self condemnation cause us to make assumptions about others judging them by how we have mentally judged ourselves.
Do not judge and criticize and condemn others, so that you may not be judged and criticized
and condemned yourselves.
For just as you judge and criticize and condemn others,
you will be judged and criticized and condemned,
in accordance with the measure you use to deal out to others, it will be dealt out again to you. Matthew 7.1-2
Judgment: internalizes one’s own beliefs…
forms an opinion without weighing true evidence…
internally deliberates pronouncing sentence without factual external inquiry…
forms an inner attitude…
the inner attitude becomes the governing rule…
the rule, ignites self motive, the quality by which we measure ourselves and others.
Judgment looks unfavorably on the character and actions of our self and others.
It leads to pronouncing rash unjust and unlovely censorship [suppressing, restricting].
judging by assumptions wipes away right facts John 7.24
judging by appearances produces false evidence and hearsay Isaiah 11.3-5
judging jumps to conclusions 1 Corinthians 4.5
judging favors one over another Leviticus 19.15
judging criticizes self and others Luke 6.37
Judgment is hypocritical, meaning insincere, two faced, deceitful, phony, producing an
attitude that tears down.
condemns and looks down upon = causes pride [Romans 14.10]
causes one to stumble and fall = sears conscience [Romans 14.13]
develops superiority [dominance] over the weaker = produces control [Roman 14.22-23]
justifies personal behaviors by condemning others for the same behaviors = ignites denial [Roman 2.1]
cultivates jealousy [a twisted form of pride] = covets [craves] and protects James 4.1
Consequences: Harshly judging our selves keeps us a victim. As a victim we lock ourselves into a
mental prison.
Judging others causes us to live in comparisons. When we compare ourselves to others we lose connectedness with our unique inner identity that God created.
Conclusion: Judging, judgment violates the Law of God’s Agape Love which disposes, discards, removes, and
rids us of all condemnation.
If indeed you really fulfill the royal Law in accordance with the Scripture, You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself, you do well. James 2.8 [Leviticus 19.18]
To fulfill this royalty Law of God we must first admit (confess) that we have condemned and criticized self and others. If we do this God forgives us and the effects of our judging will begin to diminish. But, if move into we renewing, reprogramming, changing our thinking our mind will return to its former programmed state, harshly judging ourselves and others.
Do not be conformed to this world [adapted to its external, superficial customs],
but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [new ideals and its new attitude],
so that you may proved what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God… Romans 12.2 [Amp]
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.
Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.
Readily recognize what HE wants from you, and quickly respond to it.
Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity.
God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12.2 [Message]
Did you know that God says: you are HIS beloved [Song of Solomon 2.16]
your inner [soul-heart] man is are wonderfully made [Psalms 139.13-15]
HIS love chooses you, picks you out [Ephesians 1.4]
HE will lavish every kind of wisdom and understanding on you [Ephesians 1.8]
But earnestly desire and zealously cultivate…yet…a still more excellent way one that is better by far
and the highest of them all –
love (the essential nature of God’s deep and constant love) 1 Corinthians 12.31
The Progress of God’s Agape Love in us: never gives up on me
cares and is patient and kind with me
doesn’t want what I don’t have, isn’t envious
don’t have to strut around, not possessive or jealous
doesn’t have a swelled head, not boastful or vainglorious
[conceited, arrogant, narcissistic]
doesn’t need to force my self on others, not haughty
[self-important, conceited, arrogant, inflated with pride]
isn’t me first rude, but instead mannerly others first
doesn’t fly off the handle, fears and anxieties disappear
don’t keep score, doesn’t hold onto resentments
don’t need to revel or grovel
Trusts God, pleasures truth, can put up with just about anything,
looks for the best, never looks back but keeps going forward…
God’s Agape Love in us is fadeless, enduring, never weakens, nor fails, or becomes obsolete
…but YOU have loved back my life from the pit of corruption and nothingness, for YOU have cast all my sins behind YOUR back. Isaiah 38.17.b
God’s Agape Love is Jesus. This Love retrieves us from our trying to be perfect. If we accept Jesus as our Savior HE joins and fastens HIMSELF to us so that we won’t throw ourselves away. This Loves of HIS is unconditional, warm, and affectionate. This Love will stick fast to us. This Love will permeate us from inside out. This Love delights in us, and will always builds us up. If HE, This Agape Love Jesus, is our center within we are then HIS spokes fanning out to tell others about this Agape Love.
I dare you to read John 3.16-17, 18a; 1 John 4.15-19
Gayle
