This was taken from a discussion on the Shovel Shack

Anybody got any godly wisdom on dealing with those “little judges”-we interact with on our jobs at the grocery store,in our family…? you know the little Gods that we are so accountable to such an unreasonable extent!????

Ah …. those little judges. First, know that you cannot change them, for it would take a miracle. Of course, we know that once we get past that impossibility that all things are POSSIBLE! These little judges are only following the very principles upon which their whole world is built. Their judgment is as unjust and misguided as the source of their perceptions. They hold you accountable in the same sense they believe themselves to be accountable.

But guess what? Their judgments have nothing to do with us because the rules they live by are not our rules, they are not our principles. We may be in the world but we are not of the world. The rules are for those who are under them. We have been delivered from life as understood by those little judges.

You see, the world makes its judgments based upon a performance mentality because it is in bondage to the whole desperate right vs wrong thing. While the non-Jewish world may not have been given any laws by God it has created a multitude of its own. And you and I get zapped every time we turn around.

The bottom-line lie of this whole belief demands that the Spirit of God in you is unable to perform, and therefore NEEDS a law to properly motivate Him. Of course, those who don’t have the Spirit deny that He could indwell a human anyhow, which is why the empty life has demanded that Christianity is based upon the same KIND of existence as the rest of the world … only that it is a higher - or religious - form of principle keeping. It’s like our laws are supposedly better since they come from God.

But the world knows absolutely nothing about real life. NOTHING. We did not learn Christ after the futile manner of existence we had in this world. The reason religion cannot touch the reality of Christ is because it is nothing more than a fleshly imitation of God’s life. Religion has demanded that we’re supposed to conform to this world, and has perverted a few select sentences from those letters and documents written by the disciples.

The question is: How do we view ourselves regarding all this? I think if we were honest we would have to admit that we have owned much that is not ours. So, how do we handle them? By knowing our one and only reality: Christ. The reason we are intimidated by all these little judges is that we still harbor the former convictions of the old life. We have even been convinced that it is somehow godly to do so. We’ll quote a verse here and a verse there to validate a LIE.

Do you remember visiting relatives when you were young where your parents instructed you on certain things to do or not to do simply because that’s they way THEY did things? Of course, it may have gotten turned into a right/wrong thing somewhere along the line but the initial reason for behaving yourselves a certain way in different peoples’ houses had to do with the understanding that to do otherwise would create offenses. As far as you were concerned your real life was just fine, but there was no good reason to do something like put your elbows on the table when visiting Aunt Betty. It may have been one of her principles, but it was NOT one of yours … and you simply learned not to do it at HER table. It’s not something that would ever cause you guilt or shame even though she may have preached its moral value to you while you were there. When you weren’t at her table you didn’t have to worry about it.

If you follow Romans all the way through you’ll see that this is the way he addressed the issue of “submitting to every authority” by time he got to Romans 13. It was logical for him to bring the subject up after what he had written earlier. I mean, just figure … he demanded that who they really were had nothing to do with who they had been. It wasn’t a philosophical concept he had discussed … it was the resurrected life raised from the carnage of the world. He told them they were NOT of this world.

I say logical because of the fact that the gospel he preached removed them so thoroughly from the world that the most obvious questions would have to follow, like, So, how to we then deal with a world of which we are no longer part of?

Now, I know you might be wondering how I’m going to connect all this to your question, but it’s very similar to what you asked. The truth is that if people could remove their little judges from themselves they wouldn’t need Christ. You should expect to be dealt with in this way, for those without life know of no other.

The first thing that such treatment should stir within you is the incredible, amazing difference brought about through our new life in Christ. For the little judges are trying to control THEIR OWN little world by trying to control others - like you. You, though, have been removed from that uncontrollable, futile existence.

You may be in THEIR realm - like when you step into the office - and they live according to the only motivation they know, and they ASSUME that it is the only motivation YOU know. If your boss - the little god - wants you to do a certain task, you can do that task, but you don’t have to fall into following HIS motivation. You already know the futility of the thing he still desperately leans upon. Don’t let HIS - or anybody else’s - fear intimidate you into conforming. You are from a different place than he is: KNOW THAT YOU ARE.

Love, Jim