Before you judge
Throughout my lifetime in the American church system, there has been a painfully limited emphasis on emotional health and the biblical necessity of working on it—especially in leadership. Ministries like counseling were barely spoken about and carried a quiet connotation of “use it if you need it,” as if it were some optional add-on to faith rather than a core expression of it. When it was addressed at all, it usually revolved around marriage issues.
If anyone was seen participating in “counseling,” it typically meant they were in serious trouble in some area of their life—usually their marriage. Counseling was treated like a life vest on a boat or a parachute on a plane: something you hope you never need, but pray is available in case of emergency.
Counseling was treated like a life vest on a boat or a parachute on a plane: something you hope you never need, but pray is available in case of emergency.
In many small churches, there isn’t even the infrastructure to support a full ministry model for this, so it often falls on the pastoral couple. This is a massive disservice to what so many people call “the church” and the supposed “people of God.”
Now, having attended seminary, I’m even more aware of how minimal the integration of counseling, mental health, and emotional formation is in the training of “leaders” in the church. Most counseling programs are filled primarily with women. In many degree tracks, only one counseling class is required—sometimes none at all. And yet, that single class may have been the most impactful and transformative class I took, not just for me, but for my family and my ministry.
Mental and emotional health is woven throughout Scripture. Jesus addresses it repeatedly. “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 17:22). Scripture never separates spiritual life from emotional life—we did that.
To be fair, the biblical narrative is recorded in a deeply male-dominated historical context, filtered through broken human culture and sinful masculinity. But if your eyes are open, you don’t have to look hard to see that God has always been concerned with the inner world of His people, not just their external behavior.
This morning I was reading Matthew 7, where we find the famous verse that both, supposed christians and those only barely exposed to supposed chirstianity, love to quote whenever their integrity feels even slightly threatened:
“Judge not, lest you be judged.”
For some reason, we all remember it in old King James language. At face value, many interpret this as Jesus forbidding judgment altogether—as if calling out sin, harm, or brokenness is automatically wrong. So the word “judge” takes on the meaning of evil, inappropriate, cruel, or abusive.
This has created a culture where any supposed Christian who calls attention to something unhealthy, sinful, or destructive—supposedly under the umbrella of according to Scripture—must be ready to have this verse thrown back in their face. And what’s worse, it doesn’t just come from those who don’t follow Jesus. It often comes from those who claim that they do.
What has this produced in the North American "church"?
Very little accountability.
And when accountability does surface, it often produces shame instead of healing—causing people to withdraw from relationships, disengage from community, and slowly disappear from church altogether.
And when accountability does surface, it often produces shame instead of healing—causing people to withdraw from relationships, disengage from community, and slowly disappear from church altogether.
What a tragic, weak, distorted version of what Jesus actually intended for Their people.
So let’s go deeper—because we are not ending there.
When you read the Sermon on the Mount in context, Jesus is not discouraging judgment itself. He is confronting the wayit is done, the heart it flows from, and the motivation behind it. The issue isn’t correction—the issue is corruption of the heart.
Jesus’ mission was never to shame people into change.
“I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
That’s the lens for every red letter. Every command. Every correction. Every confrontation.
Look at Matthew 6: “Be careful how you practice your righteousness.”
Jesus constantly points back to motivation, intention, and the heart.
When He teaches prayer, it’s about intimacy, not performance.
When He teaches generosity, it’s about humility, not image.
When He teaches fasting, it’s about surrender, not spirituality theater.
Jesus is famously countercultural because culture itself is sinful. We were born into it. It formed us. It trained us. It shaped our instincts. So of course the teachings of a sinless Creator feel foreign, uncomfortable, misunderstood, and often misapplied.
Then we arrive at the beam and the speck.
“First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:5).
Jesus is not saying “don’t help.”
He’s saying, don’t help from blindness.
Jesus is not saying “don’t help.”
He’s saying, don’t help from blindness.
This is a call to self-examination before confrontation.
Reflection before correction.
Surrender before speech.
When something someone says or does triggers a strong reaction in you—pause.
Stop.
Wait.
Examine yourself first.
Why did this get your attention?
Why did this stir emotion in you?
Why does this feel urgent?
Often, what we react to most strongly in others is connected to something unresolved in us. Research in psychology consistently shows that projection and emotional reactivity are deeply tied to unprocessed trauma, unresolved wounds, and internal conflict. Neuroscience tells us that the amygdala (our threat-response center) reacts before the rational brain can interpret meaning—meaning our reactions are often rooted in fear, not wisdom.
Scripture says the same thing spiritually:
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
“Search me, God, and know my heart… see if there is any offensive way in me” (Psalm 139:23–24).
This is inner work. Holy work. Hard work. Necessary work.
It’s not just about understanding your internal world.
It’s about getting your flesh out of the way.
And here’s the deeper truth:
It’s not just about understanding your internal world.
It’s about getting your flesh out of the way.
Because anyone who truly belongs to Christ carries the Holy Spirit within them (Romans 8:11). And the fruit of that Spirit is love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22–23).
You don’t actually have anything powerful to say on your own.
But when you get out of the way, the Spirit speaks in ways you never could (Luke 12:12).
When you surrender control, wisdom flows.
When ego dies, clarity lives.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8).
So how do we do this?
How do we get out of our own way?
How do we uncover what’s blocking the Spirit’s work in us?
There are things in your life that have never been processed.
Never prayed through.
Never healed.
Never surrendered.
Never examined through Scripture.
This is where counseling comes in.
Real counseling.
Biblical counseling.
Spirit-filled counseling.
Not just a good listener.
Not just a volunteer.
Not just well-meaning pastoral care.
But trained guides—people who have studied, prayed, walked the road, and learned how to help others walk it safely too. Think of them as spiritual guides on dangerous terrain. If you were climbing Everest, you wouldn’t go alone. You’d go with someone who’s walked it before.
If you were climbing Everest, you wouldn’t go alone. You’d go with someone who’s walked it before.
And here’s the truth no one wants to hear:
You don’t start counseling when you’re dying on the mountain.
(Yet that is exactly what so many leaders are doing)
You start when you’re strong.
When life feels stable.
When things “look good.”
When you think you don’t need it.
Because that’s when you’re most vulnerable.
And that’s when the enemy works hardest to keep you from developing the tools you’ll need later.
People treat counseling as a last-ditch rescue instead of preventative formation. But Scripture calls us to proactive transformation:
“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
“Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed” (Proverbs 20:18).
On a sidenote: lets not overlook what Jesus says about pearls before swine. This again reinforces how once you have examined yourself, prayed through what you are thinking and feeling alongside an expert guide and together held it up against scripture, you now have something precious (a pearl). This new insight on what you have expereinced and what you are possibly seeing happening in someone else is no longer something potentially harmful but something that could transform them by the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet Jesus still warns that it does not mean that everyone deserves it. After you have gone through regular counseling, just because you have something you feel inside that you want to share with someone, even if it is in love (which it always should be), it still does not mean that you should share it. The truth is, some people simply are not ready to recieve it and it would have no positive effect in their lives, at least not yet. You have to use your spiritual discernment to identify the swine and dogs. Hard truth: It may mean that you are not the person the Lord wants to share or point this out to. It may mean they are not ready and you simply need to love them while keeping your mouth shut (something many struggle with). This is just as much a sign of spiritual maturity as saying something in the first place (even if you've prayed over it and you are technically "right" in saying it). Ultimately you need to get what is going on inside of you in order first, then let Jesus take care of others just like it was done for you. The best thing you can do for someone is to pray for them.
What would it look like if counseling had no stigma?
If self-awareness was celebrated?
If emotional health was discipleship?
If healing was leadership formation?
If accountability was safe instead of shame-based?
What if the church led the world in emotional maturity instead of lagging behind it?
What if discipleship and counseling walked together?
What if formation replaced performance?
What if transformation replaced image?
What if American Christianity became real Christianity?
Maybe we would start seeing healed families.
Restored leaders.
Emotionally safe churches.
Honest community.
Real accountability.
Deep repentance.
True humility.
Sustainable leadership.
Healthy marriages.
Secure identities.
Spirit-led correction.
And love that actually looks like Jesus.
Maybe—just maybe—we would start to look like the One we claim to follow.
How cool would that be?
*If you would like help getting connected to counseling resources like this please reach out to us ASAP so we can get you into regular connection with the kind of guides that will change the way you view yourself and the world around you. Lets work together so we can get out of the Spirit's way and start transforming the world!