There is a Difference in Being Judged, and Being Warned 3-17-25

Warnings are to help us, not hurt us. It is always the guilty person who is first to be on the defensive. It’s like an addict who swears it’s the other person at fault and they don’t have any issues. Some people are  quick to say they’re being judged because pride prevents them from accepting the warning and being open to the truth.

It is highly likely that the person accuses someone warning them because they don’t want to change. Therefore, they will say they are being judged. God loves all of us so much that He will send warnings, which come in various ways. When we are not allowing the Word to judge us, the Lord uses His Spirit to show us we are wrong; if it doesn’t work that way, He will send someone to give a warning in love.

Many times, God sends those who function in the prophetic to give warnings. FYI – God is still using prophets today because the children of God are one body with different members and we are used in various capacities.

I heard this from a few people: “God doesn’t speak to me through someone else; He speaks directly to me” Friends, that is not always true. If a person is doing something wrong, and is not trying to change, the Word speaks, the Spirit of God speaks, and God sends people with a word of correction.

Question – “Are you too prideful to accept warnings or corrective criticism?” No one knows it all! I have been corrected many times, but what this does to me as a student of God’s Word is to help me study and strive to make less and less errors, at least on a regular basis. There may be some people who are jealous of others who spend a lot of time with the Lord and they are more intimate. Whoever thinks that way could have the same kind of intimacy the Lord; it’s a choice that one makes.

Whatever reason any of you have not been open to warnings, please repent and accept those whom God sends your way. The Lord sends others to help you. God does this because He loves us and desires to see us open to the truth and humbly accept warnings.

Example of righteous judging - Immorality Must Be Judged -I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexual immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 

But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those who are outside [unsaved]? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore, put away from yourselves the evil person (1 Corinthians 5:9-13). This is judging a Christian’s sin.

Example of unrighteous judging - Judge not, that you be not judged. For what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.  And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye?  Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye (Matthew 7:1-5). Only God knows the heart of everyone.

His handmaiden, Betty A. Burnett ~ burnettministries.org