“Do Not Look Down On Others!”

“Do Not Look Down On Others!”
King David often wondered why God created the spider. According to him the spider was a nuisance dirtying places with its web. The truth dawned on him when his life was saved by a spider’s web. King Saul and his army were pursuing David. David had no place to hide. He saw a cave and hid himself inside. When Saul’s army came to the cave, some said they should enter and search the cave. Others argued against the idea pointing to spider webs that covered the mouth of the cave. They said if somebody had entered the cave the spider web would have been broken.
There is my namesake Babila in my quarter. He grew up with a speech defect. He does not pronounce words well. When he was about ten years old he said rice was Texas food. He pronounced Texas “Tejac.” Tejac has become another name for rice; known both in Bali Nyonga and in the diaspora.
These stories came to my mind as I reflected on Paul’s words, “You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgement seat.”
Within the Church of Christ we are expected to correct each other in love. Quite unfortunately the Church is becoming a tribunal where verdicts of condemnation are irreversible and opportunities hardly given for the accused to defend themselves!
We are expected to be a loving community, helping and supporting one another. When one person stumbles or fails we should correct the one in love, knowing that he who bends to scrutinise the backside of the person infront exposes his own backside to the person behind him.
We are all going to each give an account of self to God. “Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way.”
Dear friend, “no man is an island” and no-one has a monopoly of uprightness. Once we have been called into union with Christ, “none of us lives to himself alone…If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord…” (Rom.14: 7-13).
Correct the person who violates God’s commandments; but do so in love because none of us has a moral high ground. Let us not judge and condemn others based on man-made laws that seeks to enslave rather than liberate! Let genuine love reign!
Sunday prayer: Holy Spirit guide me so that I do not become a stumbling block to anybody. Amen!
Have a blessed Sunday! Peace be with you!