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Jesus said to his disciples:
"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
If we want to be perfect is the Father is perfect we will do this best by imitating his mercy. As weak and fallen creatures we will never walk completely without fault in perfect holiness during our mortal lives. But this should sensitize us to our own constant need for mercy which we can in turn make our own as an attitude toward others. All the good things we have, not least of which is the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, we have not in virtue of any good deeds we have done, but because of God's mercy. We are called to be similarly generous toward others. We can do this first and foremost by not paying attention to what we imagine others to deserve and by forgiving others as God as first forgiven us. In this way we remove our mental barriers that would limit our love and allow us to love more like the Good Samaritan commended to us by Jesus himself.
Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Judging others is often at best a distraction and at worst a profound deception. We judge because it distracts us from the log in our own eye or even because we seem to see in others what is actually something we hate within ourselves. Oftentimes what we seem to see as worthy of judgment in others says more about us than about them. We often pretend our judgments issue from the moral high ground. But they are often issued more for our own entertainment than for any good they might do for anyone else. The delicate art of helping a brother or sister remove the splinter from his or her own eye ought only by attempted after the Lord has so filled us with mercy that we no longer see ourselves as exalted and others in need of our help. Then we will have the appropriate compassion and even holy fear to attempt to aid in the guidance of others if we feel called to do so. We can see this attitude in the heart of Daniel and in the way he identified with the sinful people on behalf of whom he interceded with God.
We have sinned, been wicked and done evil;
we have rebelled and departed from your commandments and your laws.
When, instead of judgment, we give mercy, we will find that God is never outdone in generosity. However much we manage to give we will find ourselves the beneficiaries of still more. It is by giving that we open ourselves to be filled. But the return is far in excess of what we measure out. This because when we measure with our limited attempts at mercy God responds by measuring back with his own perfect mercy, with grace beyond measure.
Give and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.
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