I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 7-9

Today’s passage begins with Jesus saying something which people love to quote, “Do not judge others…” and there is merit in paying close attention to that and the ways in which Jesus expounds on that.  However, a little further on Jesus also tells us that we can identify a tree by its fruit.  He says this in the context of warning us to beware of false prophets.  There He tells us that we can identify what type of person someone is by their actions.  So, we have two different instructions from Jesus.  One tells us not to judge others, the other tells us to pay attention to how people act and judge them accordingly.  A little closer look at what Jesus says immediately after telling us not to judge reveals that He is telling us to apply the same standard to others that we apply to ourselves.  Actually, I think Jesus is telling us we should apply the standard we apply to others to ourselves.  All too often we loudly complain about those who break a “rule” in minor way when we ourselves break that same “rule” in a major way.  We should instead seek to be more forgiving of the failure of others than we are of our own failures (although there are people who take this too far as well).