Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. (Romans 2:1 ESV) We need to check ourselves. All of us, because we’ve become so self righteous in our society, come to believe in the falsehood that we are “better” than the person who we see stumble along. Here’s what I mean: as a pastor, I go around various pastor groups and check-in with various pastors in the community throughout the month. But in my checking in with them and conversing with them, I learn about their struggles with being human, and I subsequently judge them for it. Now, that’s not what has to be held in check. Because of my place as a pastor and judging from my perspective of what I want to strive to be, I tend to look down upon their struggles forgetting for a moment that they struggle as I struggle. You see, I say, “how pathetic! How can they commit such egregious errors when they teach this?” And for as much preaching and holiness that is on full display over the weekends, I’ve come to realize that these pastors are just men, struggling to live their lives as God ordains. Yes, they are just like you and me, except they take the pulpit on weekends. Paul writes to the Romans that all of us are liable for this tendency. We all pass judgment on each other! We forget that we are all humans that make mistakes. The only thing separating you or me from the poor sap that we passed judgment on is the fact that by some grace of God (you can call it luck) we haven’t stumbled and been publicly embarrassed by it. The Bible says that we will be held accountable for our hypercritical hypocrisy. As such, we must keep our judgments in check, especially those of us who are especially righteous. Don’t think that you will never trip up and be brought forth to public disgrace. Don’t think that staring at people with judgmental eyes is acceptable. God could have been hypercritical to our sins. He wasn’t. He was beyond gracious. He offered us a second chance. It may be time to do the same for somebody we passed hypercritical hypocritical judgment on.