How to judge an elder

I've discovered over the years that it is easy to judge an elder. He must be perfect! (Please not the sarcasm!) Or at least he must measure up to some level of perfection that we imagine in our mind. It's amazing to me how tough we are on others but how lenient we are on ourselves. It's like Jesus said, we are so good at getting the speck out of our brother's eye but we can't see the log in our own. So we look at an area of weakness in our brother's life and we judge him as unfit, unqualified when we ourselves don't measure up and most of the time don't care. We justify it and say, "Hey, it's not me who wants to serve as an elder."

I guess the most difficult part in it all is that those who would judge a man unqualified to serve, will not lift a finger to help him. They will judge him unfit but they will not go and gently say, "Can I talk to you about something." So not only do we judge elders by a very strict standard, I believe even an unbiblical standard, we then do nothing to help them meet our expectations. How is that love? How is that God's will?

Lord, forgive us. We're like the Pharisees who put a load on people that the people can't carry and the Pharisees themselves didn't even try to carry. And then we won't even lift a finger to help a man grow. Change us, Father.