judgmental | Craig T. Owens

November 2026
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

“Have To” Or “Get To”

October 14, 2026 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.

The first church Jesus addresses in the Book of Revelation are the saints in Ephesus. He says to them—

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for My name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. (Revelation 2:1-4)

The Ephesians were known for a very admirable list of qualities:

good deeds
hard work
perseverance
not tolerating evil people to remain in the church
weeding out false apostles
enduring hardship without growing weary

But it appears that like the Israelites in Isaiah’s day, these qualities had ceased being delights and had now become mere duties—items to simply check off their spiritual To Do list.

Listen to what God said through the prophet Isaiah—

“What makes you think I want all your sacrifices?” says the Lord. “I am sick of your burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened cattle. I get no pleasure from the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to worship Me, who asked you to parade through My courts with all your ceremony? Stop bringing Me your meaningless gifts…. Yet they act so pious! They come to the Temple every day and seem delighted to learn all about Me. They act like a righteous nation that would never abandon the laws of its God. (Isaiah 1:11-13; 58:2)

Just like the people of Ephesus, the people in Isaiah’s day were dutifully checking all of the boxes that they thought religious people were supposed to check, but their heart was no longer into it.

**Love for Jesus—our First Love—is seen not in what we think we have to do, but in delighting in what we get to do.**

Jesus calls us to show mercy in following God’s commands (see Matthew 9:9-13; 12:1-8). But when we have a “Have to” attitude, we can easily become judgmental of anyone who is not checking off the boxes the way that we are. Judgmental people don’t love others and serve them, but they condemn them for doing the “Have tos” the wrong way.

Jesus calls us to closely monitor our attitude about our motivation to do what we do. We need to have a loving “I get to do this” attitude, not a “I have to do this and so does everyone else” attitude.

The “Have to” attitude, Jesus says, forsakes His love for our way of doing things. But the “Get to” attitude is fueled by our devotion to our First Love. Let’s all check our attitude to make sure our “Get tos” never becomes our “Have tos.”

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? My Patreon supporters get behind-the-scenes access to exclusive materials. ◀︎◀︎

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: attitude, God's love, Isaiah, judgmental, motivation, Revelation. 1 Comment »

Godly Anger

January 27, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on iTunes or Spotify.

…his anger was aroused… (Job 32:5).

Throughout the story of Job, there is very little insight from the story’s narrator. Other than the first two chapters which set up the story, and the epilogue in the last chapter, the narrator barely utters a word.

That is until a fourth man, who has been on the scene the whole time Job and his friends have been debating, finally cannot help but speak out. His name is Elihu.

Elihu has been present the whole time Job has been speaking with his other friends, but because Elihu is the youngest, he has held his tongue, awaiting an opportunity to speak. Now the narrator tells us that Elihu “became very angry with Job for justifying himself rather than God. He was also angry with the three friends, because they had found no way to refute Job, and yet had condemned him. … When he saw that the three men had nothing more to say, his anger was aroused.”

The phrase “anger was aroused” is used 31 times in the Bible. Every single instance refers to God’s anger except here. In fact, God uses the same phrase in chapter 42 that Elihu uses here.

Two things seem to arouse the anger of both God and Elihu (whose name, but the way, means “He is my God”):

Job justifying himself rather than God
Job’s friends condemning Job without evidence; in other words, they put themselves in the place of God the Judge

Here’s what Elihu knew—

To not get angry at the things that anger God is itself a sin.

I need to pay attention to my anger, and I need to express my anger in a respectful, appropriate way. It is wrong to ignore or suppress godly anger, but it is equally wrong to sin in the way that I express godly anger. Remember that the apostle Paul doesn’t say, “Don’t get angry,” but he says, “When you get angry, do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26).

When God finally speaks in this story, He expresses His anger at the same things Elihu addressed. Interestingly, God says to the oldest friend Eliphaz, “I am angry with you and your two friends,” but God doesn’t call out Elihu for any of his words.

God gets angry, perhaps more than anyone else in the Bible does, but He never sins in the expression of His anger. We need to make sure that what makes us angry is also what makes God angry. And we need to make sure that our anger is never expressed sinfully.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: anger, angry, Bible study, Elihu, Ephesians, job, judgmental, justification, sin. 1 Comment »

Poetry Saturday—Judge Not

October 3, 2020 — Craig T. Owens

Judge not; the workings of his brain

And of his heart thou canst not see;

What looks to thy dim eyes a stain,

In God’s pure light may only be

A scar, brought from some well-won field,

Where thou wouldst only faint and yield.

The look, the air, that frets thy sight,

May be a token that below

The soul has closed in deadly fight

With some infernal fiery foe,

Whose glance would scorch thy smiling grace,

And cast thee shuddering on thy face!

The fall thou darest to despise—

May be the angel’s slackened hand

Has suffered it, that he may rise

And take a firmer, surer stand;

Or, trusting less to earthly things,

May henceforth learn to use his wings.

And judge none lost; but wait and see,

With hopeful pity, not disdain;

The depth of the abyss may be

The measure of the height of pain

And love and glory that may raise

This soul to God in after days! —Adelaide Proctor

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Adelaide Proctor, battle, eternity, judgement, judgmental, poem, poetry, suffering. Leave a Comment »

Thursdays With Oswald—The Holy Spirit’s Spring-Cleaning

February 7, 2019 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

The Holy Spirit’s Spring-Cleaning

A man’s character cannot be summed up by what he does in spots, but only by what he is in the main trend of his existence. … In Matthew 7 our Lord is dealing with the need to make character. First up: The uncritical temper.

Criticism is part of the ordinary faculty of the man, he has a sense of humor—a sense of proportion, he sees where things are wrong and pulls the other fellow to bits; but Jesus says, “As a disciple, cultivate the uncritical temper.” In the spiritual domain, criticism is love turned sour. In a wholesome spiritual life there is no room for criticism. …

No human being dare criticize another human being, because immediately he does he puts himself in a superior position to the one he criticizes. … That is never the work of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost alone is in the true position of a critic; He is able to show what is wrong without wounding and hurting. … If we let these searchlights go straight down to the root of our spiritual life we will see you why Jesus says, “Don’t judge”; we won’t have time to. Our whole life is to be lived so in the power of God that He can pour through us rivers of living water to others. …

Jesus says of criticism, “Apply it to yourself, never to anyone else.” … It is impossible to develop the characteristics of a saint and maintain a critical attitude. The first thing the Holy Spirit does is to give us a spring-cleaning….

From Studies In The Sermon On The Mount

The dictionary defines criticism as the act or art of analyzing and evaluating or judging the quality of something. Jesus is looking for disciples whose character-in-action brings glory to our heavenly Father.

One area in which we all need to have the loving, penetrating searching of the Holy Spirit is in the area of our criticism We can criticize—but only ourselves; never others. We can criticize ourselves—but only in the loving eyes of the Holy Spirit who knows best how to give us a proper spring-cleaning.