Judging part 1

Paying Attention to Yourself

Matthew 7:1 is one of those verses that it seems almost every non-christian has memorized. But, it strikes me that maybe they wouldn't have to if we would apply what Jesus was trying to teach us about judging others here. I think the reason so many non-christians have this verse in their arsenal in the first place is because too often they feel more attacked by Christians who disagree with how they live their lives then loved.

Honestly, though, it's verse 6 that's thrown me off every time I've read it. I kind of always just ignore it. It just doesn't seem to fit. He's talking about judgment one minute, and suddenly He's talking about giving holy things to dogs and pearls to pigs the next. It seems like a jump that doesn't make sense.

But I think that this lesson presents an outline for approaching people who don't know Christ. And that last verse solidly gives us the answer to why, after He gives this hard teaching. So I'm going to try to tackle what I think is a three step process.

When I have a log in my eye I can probably make out the speck I see in someone else, but I can't very well see it that way God does. So the first step is to look at myself and see where my own sin is. God knows me very well. When I pay attention to others, I don't have to pay attention to myself. If I see someone doing something bad, it minimizes how I view my own sin and I'm not forced to deal with it.

Tonight while I was reading these verses, it was like God tapped me on the shoulder to show me where this applies in my life even today. A lady came through the drive-thru today and gave me an attitude when I asked her for her ID. Her view was essentially that she felt she was a lot more special than she really was. She felt far too important for someone as lowly as myself to not know her. I got mad. Really mad. And it took a little time but I while reading this stuff tonight God made me see that my problem was that I suffered from the same problem. Too often I feel too important to have to deal with the people I deal with daily. I feel like I'm too good to have to hear them complain about things. I think I'm a lot more important than I am.

And it wasn't until I was able to remove the log from my eye, even if it was just for a little bit that i was able to view her and her sin the way that God does. If I'm just as prideful as she is, there's no way I can love her like God wants me to. When pride meets pride, conflict is always the result. The problem seems to be that this log will continue to plop itself back into my eye if I'm not aware of this problem and praying about it.