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| Image by Thomas B. from Pixabay |
(Audio)
The LORD wants us to see clearly.
You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first;
then you will see clearly
to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.
Our own sinfulness, our preconceptions, and prejudices, our darkened minds, not only make us stumble but potentially cause us to hurt others under the guise of helping. We can't see clearly the issues that other people are having when the issues we are having dominate our field of vision. Yet we often try to do that first. We don't want to deal with a whole wooden beam in our own eye so we try to help with splinters in other people's eyes. We need someone who is clear sighted to first help us. Then we will know what to do for others.
For as you judge, so will you be judged,
and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.
Instead of bringing judgment to the table, as if that will solve anything, we first bring mercy. As we sow, so we reap, because "the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you" (see Mark 4:24). If our judgmental nature causes us to tear at the wounds in others and society we ourselves will experience condemnation. If we resist healing we won't distinguish well between the ways of the nations and the way of the LORD.
They followed the rites of the nations
whom the LORD had cleared out of the way of the children of Israel
and the kings of Israel whom they set up.
When we give ourselves over to the culture, to the secular world, we put ourselves at risk because we won't be able to see the real problems or address them in the right way. But this board in our eye is one to which we are accustomed. Who knows what we might see without it? We become comfortable to stumble because of a similar level of blindness to that of others. We become content with our ignorance because the responsibility that comes from seeing clearly is humanly too much. Yet it is not a responsibility which we can exercise or even comprehend without God. It is as he shows mercy through us that it overflows more and more both into our lives and into the world. When we become sensitive to our own need for his mercy we begin to clearly perceive the needs of the whole world, of which we find ourselves to be a part. Mercy will therefore abound, because as we realize our need for it God delights to fill that need.
“Give up your evil ways and keep my commandments and statutes,
in accordance with the entire law which I enjoined on your fathers
and which I sent you by my servants the prophets,”
The risk of healing seems great. But the risk of remaining unhealed is much greater. Let us cry out for healing, for mercy, so that we might become vessels of mercy.
Help us with your right hand, O Lord, and answer us.
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