Fresh Manna
by Pastor Tim Burt
Do you think you’ve ever been judgmental about someone or about their situation? Do you think you’ve ever justified your own wrong actions because you knew the intent of your own heart and had an excuse for yourself, but maybe not so much for others? Every human being on this earth is guilty of judging others and being lenient on themselves. I have heard people say countless times, That isn’t what I meant or I didn’t meant to do that—that was not my intention.
There are times when we act like our hearts are so pure. We want them to be. Hopefully we seek God for His help in having a pure heart and rightly motivated words and actions., but we still blow it! And more often than we care to admit. Right? God has a standard in His Word that He teaches us to walk in, but, walking it out in our own strength is impossible. Only with God’s grace and help can we get it right! I hope we can all admit that! 
God gives us righteousness as a gift that we cannot earn. It’s His righteousness imputed upon us through faith! We are saved from sin and washed, not because we’ve been good enough, but because Jesus lived sinless, yet died a sinner’s death to take the punishment for our sins upon Himself. When we receive Him as our Savior, and the forgiveness of sins that He paid for, then we’ve also accepted His righteousness imputed upon us. It comes as a gift. You’ll never earn your way into Heaven by being good enough. You’ve already failed at that! You’ll get there only because of His righteousness having become yours! Romans 4:7-8 (NIV) “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”
Because of our faith in what Jesus did for us, God sees us washed and pure. He’ll always want us to sincerely repent when we sin and work toward transformation to becoming more Christ-like. But that is a lifelong process. 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NLT2) says it like this. “…And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into his glorious image.” The profession of our faith and that effort to become more like Him is the proof of our Christianity and the evidence of the Holy Spirit working within us. That transformation will be ongoing until the day we are with Him. In the meantime, Jesus’ blood shed for us now covers us like a robe.
If we put on a white robe, it wouldn’t matter what was underneath. The robe would be all that is seen. Jesus has provided us with a robe of righteousness—a covering for our sin. Isaiah the prophet could foresee the day when Jesus would do this for us and spoke the prophetic words that every believer of Jesus Christ walks in today. Isaiah 61:10 (NLT) “I am overwhelmed with joy in the LORD my God! For He has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness…” This gift to those that believe, is a robe that covers our sins so that in God’s eyes, He sees our righteousness—not the unrighteousness of our own flaws that we all know too well.
We have flaws that our robe from God covers. So do others! As we walk through life, we don’t want to walk through life being judgmental or condemning. Jesus didn’t come to condemn us. Nor should we be busy judging others. We should be agents of His mercy and grace—agents of this good news of eternal life and transformation through Christ!
Who would you rather be around? Someone that sized you up and judged you, or someone who realized how flawed and forgiven they were, which made them more merciful and accepting of everyone around them? 
Jesus summed this up for us in Matthew 7:1-5 (NLT) “Stop judging others, and you will not be judged. For others will treat you as you treat them. Whatever measure you use in judging others, it will be used to measure how you are judged. And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.” Getting rid of the log in your own eye is coming to grips with the fact that your are flawed just like everyone else! Focus on the robe of righteousness. Be merciful and let them know about that. Don’t judge. Share your flaws and help them learn of the grace and mercy of God! Be a light today! Let others feel His love and mercy through you! You may be a Christian now, but this heart attitude will make you a better person!
In His love,
Pastor Tim Burt
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Published by Pastor Tim Burt
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