Judgment

Judgment is a concept in the Bible that confuses me. I feel like I need to read some type of book that helps explain it well because right now I am getting confused reading about it in Romans 2. Pretty much all I have grasped so far is that I should not judge. I feel this in the very bottom of who I am and have pain associated with times when I have tried to judge others. The times I have tried to judge others have always resulted in disaster. Recently I confronted some of my friends because I thought they were gossiping about one of our other friends and to be honest I felt ashamed later. These guys are Christian guys who I confronted and afterwards I got the feeling that they thought I was trying to be superspiritual. I felt like they were getting defensive and then I felt myself getting defensive as my pride was confronted. It was like I pointed at one of their sins and they pointed striaght back at one of mine. Sitting here now I am thinking, what does it profit us if we spend our time pointing at each other's sins?
Romans 2:1-2 says, "Therefore you are unexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you practice the same things. But we know that the judgement of God is according to truth against those who practice such things." I think of how often I judge others throughout the course of my day. I must purge this from daily thinking. I must replace it with something though. Perhaps this could involve focusing on the beauty of God's image in others instead of their faults which I am always also guilty of. I fail to purge judging from my thought life and then wonder why it is so hard for me to love certain people. Surely there is a lot to love. That person is made in the image of God. The failure is mine. How duplicitous the Bible says that I am and how true I am finding that to be.
This first part of Romans is tough reading and maybe someone could enlighten me more on what all this "law" stuff is about. I am trudging through it and trying to piece it all together. It's fun once I get to Romans 7 and 8 because I've heard so many sermons on those chapters but before that I feel a lot more lost. Maybe we could all share some insight on some of the more confusing topics...the law, circumcision, judgment with some reference to specific verses would be awesome. Seamas, I haven't heard anything about the new perspective on Paul thing. It would be cool if you could fill us in.