Making Righteous Judgments and Judging Others

I was given the opportunity to teach a lesson at church today in Elder's Quorum. It was nice change from teaching the youth Sunday School for over the past three years. There were a few insights that I got from teaching this lesson.

1. It is easy to judge other people without knowing all of the facts. Martha in the new testament is an example of this. It would be easy to judge her as one that did not have a deep testimony of the Savior. However, the story of Lazarus tells us that she knows for certain who the Savior is and has the utmost faith in him and his divine power. Another example is the prophet Samuel from the Old Testament. Samuel did not realize that the Lord judges not by the out ward appearance when he went to anoint the king of Israel. He was taught by the Lord through that experience as he thought first to pick the eldest son of Jesse that "The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

2. All of us are required to make judgments about people on a daily basis. This is what God requires of us in order to be able to keep his commandments.

3. The way to judge is given to all men and women, through the Light of Christ. All men are able to discern between good and evil.

4. In order to be able to make righteous judgments we need to qualify to have the Holy Ghost in our lives. This will enable us to have compassion on others, and say what God would have us say. We need to remember to pull the beam out of our own eye before attempting to take the beam out of our neighbor's eye.