It’s so hard to worry only about yourself, isn’t it? When the teacher says, “Study your spelling words,” you don’t immediately get your own list but instead lean over and tell the daydreaming kid next to you, “Hey! He said to study your spelling words!” The whole time you’re forgetting that you aren’t exactly doing what the teacher asked either.
Maybe you get in the car and say, “You would not believe what so-and-so said in class!” The whole time you forget that you are gossiping about a gossiper.
After dinner, when your parents ask you to clean the kitchen, you don’t think to say, “Sure!” Instead you run to your brother’s room and shout, “Hey! Mom says we have to clean the kitchen! I’m not doing it by myself!” The whole time you’re so worried that he might get out of work that you don’t even realize that you aren’t doing what your mom asked either.
It’s so very easy to see the flaws in other people and not so easy to see them in ourselves, isn’t it? Jesus knew that people tend to worry more about what other people do wrong. So he told them, “The standards you use for others will be applied to you. So why do you see the piece of sawdust in another believer’s eye and not notice the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to another believer, ‘Let me take the piece of sawdust out of your eye,’ when you have a beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye. Then you will see clearly to remove the piece of sawdust from another believer’s eye” (Matthew 7:2-5).
Let the Holy Spirit work in your heart to make sure you pay attention to your behavior first. Then, as someone who recognizes your own sins, you can help others along.
