Judging Hearts vs. Judging Actions

Often you will hear a Christian say that we are not supposed to judge. This is true in one sense and false in other.

Jesus taught us, very explicitly, not to judge another person's heart. This means to judge a person's intentions, motives, circumstances, fate, and their state of soul is a serious sin. No human person should ever try to judge the deep and mysterious stuff that makes us who we are. Only God knows the shape of a person's heart, and only God can judge a person's heart.

But Jesus did not teach us not to judge a person's actions; He did not teach us not to distinguish between right actions and wrong actions. If we could not judge actions right or wrong we would be morally crippled. Thus Christians and all people of right reason separate what a person does from who a person is. For what a person does might be great evil, but who a person is - a son or daughter of God the Father - never changes.

Christians are ever called to love the person beyond all reason. And we must hate sins themselves, and distinguish, very clearly, sins from persons. One hates the sin all the more one loves the person, for the sin is corruption of the good of the person as they were created by God himself.