A Kingdom Divided

But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls.

Luke 11:17

Too often we fall into judgement of others. It is a tendency that all of us have, but Jesus tells us plainly that he is the Judge. This authority to judge was given to Jesus by the Father. We must remember that it is good that we have a Just Judge because without justice there is chaos.

Nor does the Father judge anyone, but he has given all judgement to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father

John 5:22-23

Jesus knows humanity intimately so he is able to judge humanity justly. Jesus was fully human, while also fully divine. He endured all of what it means to be human for humanity’s sake. Therefore he has been given the authority to be the judge of humanity. He is able to perfectly judge humanity not only because he knows our nature as human beings, but because Jesus also knows how we have been tempted.

To this end, we do not need to, nor should we, judge others. In fact judging others is a distrust in Jesus’ just judgement. It is prideful to think we know all as Jesus knows all. Instead we are to hope that all will be made right in the end. This is the promise of the Lord. We can count on Jesus’ perfect justice in all things, although this may not always mean perfect justice in this world.

This life is not the end. We must continue to hope in the resurrection. We must continue to trust in Jesus despite the injustices in this world. Jesus Christ never abandons or rejects us, but we can surely abandon and reject Him. When we begin to do his job by placing our judgement upon others, we are operating outside of our authority. Only Jesus Christ himself has the authority and the omnipotence to judge justly. All of our judgement will fall short of His perfect justice.

So we must stop the judgement of others, for all of our judgement comes from our own feelings of rejection. It is a spirit of rejection that is at work, lying to us and convincing us that we have been rejected by others and even more deeply painful, by God himself. We cope with this feeling of rejection by judging others, which falsely lifts ourselves up and convinces us that we are better than the other. Judging others is happening all over the place today in our culture. We all think we know better than our neighbor and what this mentality has done has created chaos. We must consider the fact that we are feeling rejected to some degree. The spirit of rejection is no doubt at work here.

When we find ourselves in this situation we can abandon ourselves to the perfect judgement of Jesus Christ. We can imitate Christ during his passion who humbly walked to his death on the cross even though the cross was the most unjust act of all time. For he too was rejected by even his closest friends at Calvary. The crowd that had once begged him to heal them, was now shouting “crucify him!” Although Jesus was rejected during his passion and death, he faced it head on and entered into it in love, instead of running away from it; thus he was able to suffer and die in great love and mercy for all of mankind.

Jesus conquered the cross by love despite being rejected by humanity. The spirit of rejection no doubt tried to get him to give up or to lash out by blaming and judging others, but Jesus was silent. He endured it all in trust in the Father. His trust in God was greater than his feelings of rejection. Even when he didn’t feel the Father’s love, Jesus chose to trust, he chose to love, and he chose to endure.

It is always important to recognize the spirit at work in the ministry of deliverance. Until we know what is attacking us, who is lying to us, and how and why we are being tempted, we will never be able to battle the right enemy. Far too often we end up battling each other, the children of God, instead of battling Satan and his army. The Lord desires us to walk hand in hand as the Body of Christ, so that we may find strength in one another in this battle against our true enemy. Only then will we be able to rise up out of the darkness and into the light of Christ.