DO I HAVE SOMETHING IN MY EYE?

Today's Passage:  Matthew 7: 1-5 

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the spec in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother "let me take the spec out of your eye," when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the spec from your brother's eye.

Notes:

It is easy to see other's faults and not our own, when we are looking outward, not in at ourselves.

It is easy to point fingers and call people out for their mistakes, and ignore our own.

When we have big issues of our own, we are more likely to look for things in other people that will take the attention (of ourselves and everyone else) away from our own problems.

How this passage can be applied to my life:

When I find myself judging someone else, whether an individual or a group of people, I usually only do it in my head, sometimes share with someone close to me, but absolutely never directly confront the specific person/people. (Confrontation has always been something I've worked hard to avoid.) I've started to catch myself doing this more often lately. I have to say to myself, "Hey stop that! Bad thought!"

I have been asking God nightly for the last few months to open my eyes, to make me less blind to my own impurities, to help me see them, so that He can help me to be rid of them. There are quite a few that we have discovered and our working on cleaning up. For example, sarcasm! Sarcasm has always been a huge part of who I am, or was. For lack of a better phrase, the "smart ass" comments that used to come so easily in any given situation, are now few and far between, and getting less and less. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

Memory verse from today's reading:

Matthew 7:5
You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Something to think about?

What's in your eye?