Unrealised hypocrisy

Matthew 7:1-6

“Don’t criticize, and then you won’t be criticized. For others will treat you as you treat them. And why worry about a speck in the eye of a brother when you have a board in your own? Should you say, ‘Friend, let me help you get that speck out of your eye,’ when you can’t even see because of the board in your own? Hypocrite! First get rid of the board. Then you can see to help your brother.

Apparently, Brits, as a nation are known to be "nit-picking" complainers. Australians love to call us "whinging poms"! Perhaps it's born out of fighting the rigors of the good old British winter - of which we have just had a big dose?!

It's very easy to slip into a critical, complaining mindset. That attitude is like spending a day under a bleak grey cloud. Unchecked, it can lead to the point that everyone else is to blame but me!

That is what Jesus is warning about in the passage above. When I'm constantly criticising other people, I become spiritually blind to my own faults.

Actually, Jesus, with a carpentry background, uses the analogy of a spec of wood and a plank of timber.

It's an occupational hazard of a carpenter to get the odd spec of sawdust in the eye. However, it's a bit ludicrous to walk around with a plank of wood blocking the eyesight. How on earth could that happen?

There's a clue here - a danger that each of us can fall into - hypocrisy! Doing the very thing that we are accusing others of doing - only on a larger scale.

Perhaps you've watched some of the impeachment trial of the ex-President of the USA. The prosecution brought angry accusations of incitement. It all looked very plausible until the defence attorney turned the tables. Then he showed clips of the accusers stirring up crowds of protesters encouraging violence and disorder themselves, using impassioned speech to emphasise their point. The defence attorney accused them of gross hypocrisy.

God forbid that we get involved in tearing one another apart.

Let's not use a microscope to examine others and rose coloured glasses when we look at ourselves.

We all are in desperate need of God's amazing grace.

Do I really mean it when I sing "amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me?" Have I, in truth, seen the wretchedness of my own soul without Jesus? Or do I think that I'm as good as anyone else?

Time to get rid of a few planks and start building bridges of relationships broken by harsh critical words.