Evangelist Joshua Orekhie Ministries

EJOM DAILY DEVOTIONAL:

July 31, 2026

Judge Yourself Before Judging Others

Opening Scriptures

Matthew 7:1–5 (KJV)

“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”

Galatians 6:1 (KJV)

“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”

Memory Verse

Lamentations 3:40 (KJV)

“Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.”

Praise and Worship

Sing songs that ask God to search your heart, create a clean spirit within you, and help you walk in humility, love, and holiness.

EJOM DAILY DEVOTIONAL: July 31, 2026 – Judge Yourself Before Judging Others

One of the easiest things to do in life is to point out the faults of others while ignoring our own shortcomings. Human nature often makes us notice another person’s mistakes more quickly than our own.

We become experts at criticizing, condemning, and exposing people, yet we fail to examine the condition of our own hearts.  Jesus warned against this attitude because it produces hypocrisy rather than holiness.

Many people are quick to judge the actions, appearance, decisions, failures, or spiritual lives of others without knowing the full story. We see people’s public behaviour but often know nothing about the private battles they are fighting.

Some people are carrying emotional pain, family struggles, financial burdens, or spiritual warfare that others cannot see. Instead of praying for them, we judge them quickly. The Bible does not forbid discernment or correcting sin. Rather, it warns against hypocritical, self-righteous, and condemning judgment.

Before correcting another person, God wants us to first examine our own lives. Self-examination produces humility, compassion, and wisdom. It reminds us that we also depend on God’s mercy every day. A heart that constantly judges others soon becomes proud, critical, and unteachable.

However, a heart that regularly judges itself becomes humble, repentant, and open to God’s correction. As believers, we should desire personal transformation before attempting to transform others.

Today, ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal any area where you need repentance and growth before focusing on someone else’s weaknesses.

Jesus was full of truth, but He was also full of grace. He corrected sinners without humiliating them and called people to repentance without self-righteousness. Before you criticize another person’s life, ask yourself some honest questions: “Am I living according to the same standard I expect from others?

Am I free from the very fault I am condemning? Have I prayed for this person before speaking about them?” These questions help us judge ourselves before judging others. Many relationships have been destroyed because of quick judgment.

Marriages have suffered setbacks because husbands and wives assume the worst about each other instead of communicating with love. Friendships have ended untimely because people believed rumours without seeking the truth.

Many people have lost valuable relationships because of a judgmental attitude. They cannot overlook small mistakes. They are quick to criticize but slow to appreciate.

They remember every wrong that was done to them but easily forget the kindness people have shown them. Such an attitude creates loneliness because no human being is perfect. If you expect perfection from everyone around you, you will constantly be disappointed.

Learn to extend the same grace you desire to receive from others. Some believers have become spiritual detectives instead of spiritual disciples. They spend their time investigating people’s faults instead of pursuing intimacy with God.

They know every rumour circulating in the church, every weakness of their leaders, every mistake of fellow believers, yet they neglect their own prayer life.

God has not called us to become investigators of people’s failures.  He has called us to be witnesses of His love, mercy, and transforming power. Be careful not to mistake appearances for reality. A person may appear joyful while secretly carrying unbearable burdens.

Someone may look spiritually strong while fighting private battles that only God knows about. Another person may seem distant or unfriendly simply because they are going through a painful season. If you judge people only by what you see, you may wrongly condemn those whom God wants you to comfort.

This is why compassion should always accompany discernment. There are times when God allows you to witness another person’s weakness, not so that you can publicize it, but so that you can intercede for them. Instead of saying, “Did you hear what happened?” ask yourself, “Have I prayed for this person?”

Prayer changes situations far more effectively than criticism ever will. The Church grows stronger when believers cover one another in prayer instead of exposing one another in gossip. Another area where believers must judge themselves is their speech. Jesus said that we shall give account for every idle word we speak.

Before speaking about another person, ask yourself three questions: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it spoken in love? If your words fail these tests, wisdom may require silence. A controlled tongue is evidence of a transformed heart. Judging yourself also means examining your hidden motives.

Sometimes a good action can be driven by a wrong motive. You may give to be praised, serve to gain recognition, or preach to receive applause rather than to glorify God. While people see the outward action, God examines the intention behind it. David prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart.”

That should be the daily prayer of every believer who desires to walk in integrity. Remember that your greatest assignment is not to change everyone around you but to allow the Holy Spirit to transform you from within. When your own life reflects Christ, your example will speak louder than your criticism.

People are more likely to change because they have seen your humility than because they have heard your condemnation. Many relationships have been destroyed because of quick judgment. Marriages have suffered because husbands and wives assume the worst about each other instead of communicating with love.

Friendships have ended because people believed rumours without seeking the truth. Churches have experienced division because members became judges instead of encouragers. A judgmental attitude creates suspicion, criticism, bitterness, and unnecessary conflicts.

The Pharisees in Jesus’ day were known for pointing out the faults of others while hiding their own spiritual emptiness. They appeared holy on the outside but neglected justice, mercy, humility, and love. Jesus rebuked them because outward religion without inward transformation is hypocrisy.

God is more interested in changing your heart than in making you an inspector of other people’s lives. Judging yourself means examining your motives, attitudes, words, and actions in the light of God’s Word.

It means asking the Holy Spirit to reveal hidden pride, jealousy, unforgiveness, anger, selfishness, or secret sins that may be hindering your own relationship with God.

Self-examination is not an act of condemnation; it is an act of wisdom. A person who regularly allows God to search his heart will continue to grow spiritually and cautious in life.

Sometimes we judge people based on their appearance, educational background, financial status, tribe, race, occupation, or past mistakes.

However, God looks beyond outward appearance and sees the heart. Many people whom society rejected became mighty instruments in God’s hands.

David was overlooked by his family, Rahab had a sinful past, Zacchaeus was despised by many, and Saul of Tarsus persecuted the Church before becoming the Apostle Paul.

If God had judged them only by their past, their destinies would never have been fulfilled. Another danger of judging others is that it blinds us to our own need for repentance. The more we focus on another person’s faults, the less attention we give to correcting our own character.

Instead of growing in holiness, we become occupied with discussing the failures of others. This is why Jesus said we should first remove the beam from our own eye before attempting to remove the speck from our brother’s eye. Personal revival always begins with personal examination.

There is also a difference between discernment and judgmentalism. Discernment is a gift from God that helps us distinguish truth from error and good from evil according to Scripture.

A judgmental spirit, however, condemns people harshly, assumes motives without evidence, and delights in exposing faults rather than restoring lives or correcting them.

God calls us to exercise discernment while showing mercy, humility, and compassion. Believers should be known for restoring people, not destroying them. When someone falls into sin, our first response should not be gossip or public condemnation.

We should pray for them, encourage genuine repentance, and, where appropriate, lovingly help them return to God. This reflects the heart of Christ, who came to seek and save those who were lost. Finally, remember that one day every one of us will stand before God and give an account of our own lives not the lives of others.

On that day, God will not ask how many faults you found in your neighbour but how faithfully you obeyed His Word. Therefore, spend more time allowing God’s Word to correct you than looking for reasons to criticize others. A humble heart attracts God’s grace, but a proud and judgmental spirit distances itself from His favour.

Let your life be marked by mercy, truth, humility, and love, and you will become a blessing to everyone around you. Let me take you to Matthew chapter 7:1 to 5, where Jesus said, judge not, that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

This is not a suggestion, this is a spiritual law, a boomerang principle. Whatever standard you use to measure another man’s fault is the exact same standard heaven will use to measure yours.

So if you are harsh, if you are quick to condemn, if you show no mercy when you discover another person’s weakness, be careful, because that same harshness is what will come back to meet you on your own day of testing.

Jesus is saying, you can see a tiny speck in somebody else’s eye from a distance, yet you are walking around with a whole plank in your own eye and you don’t even notice it. That is exactly how self-deception works. It is always easier to spot small faults in others while remaining completely blind to the bigger issues in yourself.

Let’s look at John chapter 8, the woman caught in adultery. The Pharisees dragged her before Jesus, ready to stone her, quoting the law, standing on their so-called righteousness. But Jesus stooped down, wrote on the ground, and said, he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

Beloved, one by one, beginning from the eldest, they all left, convicted by their own conscience, because when the searchlight of God’s Word turns inward, nobody remains standing to condemn another.

Jesus did not say her sin was acceptable, He told her plainly, go and sin no more, but He dealt with her in restoration, not humiliation, and He dealt with her accusers in conviction, not permission to stone.

This is the model for us today. When you discover somebody’s weakness, your first instinct should not be a stone in your hand, rather it should be a prayer on your lips.

Your first instinct should not be to broadcast it everywhere – in the family group chat, in your compound, in your class, in the saloon or in the church corridor, rather you should bring that person before God in your secret place.

I want to say something plainly here: Some of us have made ourselves permanent judges over other people’s lives, over their marriages, over their finances, over their calling, over their mistakes, yet in our own closet we are not clean.

God is saying, stop being the Holy Spirit’s assistant in everybody else’s file, and let Him be Lord over your own file first. Sweep your own house before you start commenting on your neighbor’s house.

Today, before you open your mouth to criticize others, before you forward that piece of gossip, before you conclude in your heart that somebody is finished, useless, or beyond redemption, stop, and ask the Holy Spirit to first search you.

Because the same mercy you are refusing to extend to somebody else today is the exact same mercy you will be desperately needing tomorrow. Let mercy, not judgment, be the first word out of your mouth from today, in the mighty name of Jesus.

Many people are experts at exposing the sins of others but remain blind to their own spiritual condition. They can easily identify another person’s weakness, yet they struggle to admit their own mistakes.

The truth is, spiritual maturity is not measured by how accurately you can point out another person’s faults but by how willing you are to allow God to correct your own life. The closer you draw to God, the more aware you become of your need for His mercy.

One reason people judge others harshly is because they compare themselves with those they consider worse than themselves. They think, “At least I am not like that person.” This was the attitude of the Pharisee in Luke 18, who proudly thanked God that he was not like sinners, while the tax collector simply cried out for mercy.

Jesus declared that it was the humble tax collector who went home justified, not the self-righteous Pharisee. God resists pride but gives grace to the humble. Another danger of judging others is that it can lead to gossip.

A person who constantly criticizes others will eventually begin to spread stories that damage reputations and destroy relationships.  The Bible repeatedly warns against using our tongues to tear people down.

Before speaking about someone’s weakness, ask yourself: “Will my words help restore this person, or will they simply destroy their reputation?” If your words do not promote healing, wisdom, or truth, it is often better to remain silent.

Sometimes we judge people based on one mistake and conclude that they will never change. But this is not how God deals with His children. Peter denied Jesus three times, yet Christ restored him and made him a leader in the early Church.

John Mark disappointed Paul during a missionary journey, but later Paul testified that he was useful for the ministry. God’s grace gives people another opportunity. Therefore, do not write people off simply because of a season of failure. There are also people who judge others because of envy.

When they see someone succeeding, they begin to criticize everything that the person does. Instead of celebrating another person’s progress, they search for faults to justify their jealousy. This attitude pollutes the heart and prevents spiritual growth. Learn to rejoice when God blesses others.

Learn to celeberate others when their season comes. Their testimony does not reduce your own or block your expectations. The God who lifted them is able to lift you at the appointed time.

As believers, we must also be careful not to become judges based on outward appearances. Someone may dress differently from you, worship differently from you, or come from a different background, yet genuinely love God.

Samuel almost anointed the wrong son of Jesse because he focused on outward appearance, but God reminded him 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). We should learn to see people through the eyes of grace rather than through the eyes of prejudice.

When you make self-examination a daily habit, you become more patient with the weaknesses of others. You remember how much God has forgiven you, and this makes it easier to forgive those who offend you.

Mercy flows naturally from people who understand the mercy they themselves have received. Instead of asking, “Why did they fail?” ask, “How can I pray for them? How can I encourage them to rise again?” The Bible, church, does not tell us to close our eyes and pretend sin does not exist.

No, the Bible actually encourages believers to lovingly correct one another when it is necessary. Correction is biblical, church, correction is scriptural, but hear me well, the goal of every correction must always be restoration, never humiliation.

If your correction is designed to expose somebody, to embarrass somebody, to make somebody look small in front of others, that is not correction anymore, that is public execution, and that is not what God sent you to do.

Correction without love produces resentment and bitterness. You can be one hundred percent correct in what you are saying, but if love is missing from how you say it, the person will not receive it, they will resist it, they will grow bitter toward you, and sometimes they will grow bitter toward God Himself because of how you represented Him.

But correction with humility, correction wrapped in genuine love, produces growth, peace and satisfaction. The person may not enjoy it in the moment, correction is never comfortable, but if it is delivered in humility, something in their spirit receives it, and over time, you will see the fruit of transformation.

So even when you must confront somebody, and there are times you must do it, please know that silence is not always spiritual, sometimes silence is cowardice, but when you must confront, do it with gentleness. Do it with wisdom. Do it with respect for that person’s dignity.

Do not confront in anger. Do not confront to prove a point. Do not confront to win an argument. Confront because you genuinely want that person to be better, to be restored, to walk closer with God than they were before you spoke to them.

There are people who spend so much time discussing the failures of others that they have no time left to work on themselves. They know who is wrong, who offended whom, who fell into sin, who made a mistake, and who disappointed the church, but they cannot remember the last time they sincerely asked God to search their own hearts.

Christianity is not a competition to see who can expose the most faults; it is a journey of becoming more like Christ every day. One sign of spiritual maturity is the willingness to accept correction. A person who judges himself welcomes godly rebuke because he understands that correction is designed to produce growth, not shame.

Unfortunately, many people love correcting others but hate being corrected themselves. They become defensive, angry, or offended whenever someone points out their weaknesses. The Bible says, “He is in the way of life that keepeth instruction: but he that refuseth reproof erreth” (Proverbs 10:17).

If you cannot receive correction, you will eventually stop growing. Before you become a critic, become a learner. Before you become an accuser, become a prayer warrior. Before you become an inspector of another person’s life, become a student of God’s Word. It is easier to point fingers than to change your own character.

True revival begins when we stop asking, “Who is responsible for this problem?” and start asking, “Lord, what do You want to change in me?” Many families have been divided because people refused to judge themselves. Pride prevents people from apologizing even when they know they are wrong.

Instead of admitting their mistakes, they justify their actions and blame everyone else. Homes have been broken because husbands blamed wives, wives blamed husbands, parents blamed children, and children blamed parents.

Healing begins when each person accepts responsibility for his or her own actions instead of constantly looking for someone else to blame. This principle also applies in the workplace and in ministry. Some people believe that the reason they are not progressing is because of everyone else.

They blame their pastor, employer, colleagues, relatives, government, or friends for every setback. While external challenges are real, wisdom requires honest self-examination. Ask yourself: Am I developing my skills? Am I faithful with my responsibilities? Am I managing my time wisely? Am I obeying God’s instructions?

Sometimes the breakthrough we are praying for begins with changing our own attitude. When King David sinned by numbering Israel, he did not continue blaming others after the prophet Nathan confronted him. He humbled himself before God and accepted responsibility for his actions.

Likewise, when the prodigal son came to his senses, he did not blame his friends or his circumstances. He said, “I have sinned against heaven, and before thee.” The road to restoration always begins with honest repentance. The Holy Spirit is the greatest Examiner of the human heart.

He exposes hidden sins not to condemn us but to transform us. He reveals pride so that He can replace it with humility. He exposes bitterness so that He can fill us with forgiveness. He uncovers unbelief so that our faith can grow stronger. Therefore, whenever God convicts you, do not harden your heart.

Respond with repentance, because every correction from God is an invitation to become more like Christ. Remember that the measure of your Christianity is not how many faults you can identify in others but how much the character of Jesus is being formed in you.

People should see humility instead of pride, mercy instead of condemnation, patience instead of anger, forgiveness instead of bitterness, and love instead of criticism. These are the fruits of a life that has allowed God to do a deep work within.

As you leave your house each day, make this your prayer: “Lord, help me to see my own heart before I criticize someone else’s life. Give me the grace to correct with love, to forgive quickly, to speak with wisdom, and to walk humbly before You.”

A believer who lives this way will become a peacemaker, a source of encouragement, and a true reflection of Christ in a world that is quick to condemn but slow to show mercy. Never forget that one day every secret thing will be brought before the judgment seat of Christ.

On that day, hidden motives, private actions, and unspoken thoughts will be revealed by God Himself. Therefore, live each day with humility, examining your own heart, walking in repentance, and depending on God’s mercy.

If you are faithful to judge yourself according to the Word of God today, you will have nothing to fear when you stand before the righteous Judge. Let your daily pursuit be holiness, humility, and love, for these are the qualities that truly reflect the character of Jesus Christ.

Finally, make it your daily prayer that God will search your heart before you examine the lives of others. Ask Him to remove every trace of pride, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and a critical spirit.

A person who continually submits to God’s correction becomes a vessel of honour, an instrument of peace, and a source of encouragement to others. Judge yourself by the standard of God’s Word, walk in humility, and leave the final judgment to God, who alone knows every heart completely.