Sept 3

James 4:11-12

11 Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you.
12 God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?

You're a tennis player. You're playing a critical game in an important tournament. You're serving for the match; if you win this point, you're the champion. You toss the ball into the air and hit it with all your might, but your serve sails past the other player and lands on the grass outside the fence that surrounds the tennis court. "Second serve," the umpire announces. You get one more chance to serve for the match. You toss the ball into the air and hit it. This time your serve hits the net and bounces back into your court. "Double fault," the umpire intones. You shake your head in disappointment and prepare to serve again. But the umpire informs you that the score is now tied. You charge the umpire's chair. "No way!" you protest. "I want to serve again!" You throw your racket to the ground and insist that you always take three serves, not two. You scream that you've been playing tennis for five years. "You have no right to tell me how the game is supposed to be played!" you howl. "I'll decide that for myself." Enraged, you throw your arms up in disgust and storm off the court. You'd never act that way, of course. You're much too nice, right? Besides, everyone knows that two missed serves-a double fault, in tennis lingo-scores a point for the server's opponent. Those are the rules. That's the way the game is played. Yet, surprisingly, a lot of people expect the rules of right and wrong to be different. They think they can make up their own rules as they go along, changing what's wrong or right to fit their mood or circumstance. But right and wrong are just as clear as the rules of tennis. Everyone knows that stealing is wrong and integrity is right; cruelty is wrong, and mercy is right; hate is wrong, and love is right. Those are the rules. And, like the Bible says, "You are not a judge who can decide whether the law is right or wrong. Your job is to obey it. God alone, who made the law, can rightly judge among us" (James 4:11-12). Of course, as long as good and evil exist in the world, people will continue to try to make up their own rules. But not you. You're much too smart, right?

REFLECT: Do you think tennis would be more fun or less fun if everyone could make up his or her own rules? Why? Do you think life is more fun or less fun when we obey God's rules? Why?

ACT: Challenge a friend or family member to a set of tennis, and use that as an opportunity to share the point of today's reading with him or her. Or simply place a tennis ball or tennis racket in a prominent place in your room this week to remind you that your job is to obey God's rules, not to try to change them or challenge them.

PRAY: "Creator God, you are much wiser than I am. Forgive me for questioning your rule about..."

Wow that story was much too childish.

IT's so easy to judge others but when it comes to judging ourselves, it's hard.
Judging alone is up to God but sometimes we feel the need to judge others
It's even easier to judge inside the church because we perceive the church as a place where people should be more righteous but when we see obvious sin amongst our church members, we judge.
It's so easy to forget that God is the only one who has the right to judge simply because he's the only one without sin. Once we have sin, we're at the exact same level as anyone else who sins.

humans can be really selfish and are willing to do anything that will go along their own favour. we can easily judge others by their appearance, first impressions, actions, etc. who are we to judge others? some people can find it hard to judge themselves. like in todays story, the tennis player was trying to prove really nothing to the referee that he was right and the referee was wrong, this shows that he wasn't judging himself for the mistake he had made. we shouldn't judge others because it is God that has the power to rightly judge people. we all sin so why don't we judge our own selves? since God has not committed any sin, he is able to correctly judge EVERYONE...this includes us.
school starts tomorrow for me...first day of high school for the gr. 9s and then on wednesday, the gr. 10s, 11s and 12s are gonna be in school with us. joy.
good luck to those starting school tomorrow! finally in high school...haha

Goodbye summer, Hello school
From todays story and bible verses, I kind of got the message to practice what you preach and to mind your own business instead of sticking your nose in other peoples matter.
You shouldn't criticize someone negatively, and then go do the exact same thing they do. For example, if you say to someone "Stop gossiping, it's a sin!", and then you go to your friend and start gossiping about some sleazy secret you heard, that is being a hypocrite.
God made rules for us to follow. We should be able to actually DO them, if we tell others to listen to them.
Bye~
-Sarah
P.S. Best of luck to all those going back to school!

Schools tomorrow.....thankfully tomorrow's only the orientation day...so it really starts on Wednesday.

I'm pretty sure we judge all the time whether we notice it or not. Not even noticing that we do this ourselves, we tend to emphasize on other problems and only focus on the good qualities we have. But we were not born entirely clean.....every human on this earth is like this. So why do we look at other peoples bad qualities instead?????
I think it's because we don't like admitting the wrong stuff we do. Of course, humans like praise more than aknowledgeing others. But as Christians, we should do our best and have the lord as our role model. Be pure ourselves and then we can look into others.

That was a little repetitive......sorry. Hope it makes some sense though.
Audrey

no school tomarrow =)

It is very easy to judge others with your opinion. But your opinion doesnt matter in this case and only God has the right to decide and not us.

Pretty sure you guys have heard of the "Dont judge a book by its cover".

When we are judging someone, we are probably judging themm by the actions they commited and the words they said. BUT we do not know WHJY they said it or the circumstances. We dont know any of this and are judging them with only the outside. But God can see the inside and he knows why this person did this and did that. God can read our hearts and know what were feeling.

Also, when we are judging others, like for example if someone killed someone, we automatically think that he/she isa bad person. But if we reflect upon our selves, we have probably killed before too, hopeuflly not people but insects or animals. We ended lives of other creatures, may not be the same as killing a person but still taking away a life from another creation of God.
So all in all, dont judge because you probably have commited the same action as the other peron, and we dont have the right to judge because we have sinned and we do not know their heart.

i personally think the devos are kinda... lame... maybe just me

anywho, didn't get so much right on the topic of judgement and stuff, but it reminded me of someone from sometime ago saying pity is a thing of the devil. Now how can it be something bad? We, as Christians, are called to be compassionate and have empathy, but empathy is very different from pity. God made people equally, we are all the same. We can not look down on someone else for committing a "big sin" against God because we were all born as sinners. God does not view us the way society does. Sure, in court, the penalty for murder is much larger than for theft, but in God's eyes, they are both sins, neither of them different from the other. So that being said, we should never pity someone. Who are we to say that we are better off, or that someone is not doing as well as us. Only God can attest to that. So be kind and empathetic, but resist the feeling of pity you may sometimes have towards other people.

11 Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you.

Main point.
This is so crucial. It's weird, I don't hear about this enough! We always judge... It's so hard not too! It's what first impressions are all about! And deciding whether or not you need to follow a certain commandment, by making exceptions for yourself and whatnot, is not what you want to be doing.
All in all, we have to humble ourselves. We have to make sure that we put ourselves on the same level as everyone else, and do as you think they should do.
Remember! We're all part of the same body! We all have to do our part to stay spiritually strong!

Sorry if that was all over the place guys, I have school tomorrow and I'm NOT ready AT ALL. hahah
and guys! Come to wings!

you guys said it all!

God is the creator of everything. WE have no right to judge anyone or anything because then we are basically judging Gods creations.
If there are Gods creations, do we haev the right to change them and judge? No.. Same way with a tennis game. It would be no fun and inappropriate to chagne the rules of the game as it goes on..

I think ill try the tennis game.. but with a diff sport ahaha!