Can You See Clearly?
By Darren Hewer
Also available as a podcast at: http://thelife.com/blogs/experience/kindle/2008/07/29/can-you-see-clearly-2/
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Please open your Bible and read Matthew 7:3-5.
In a recent survey of “unchurched” individuals conducted by Barna Research Group, an astonishing 85% of participants called Christians “hypocritical”.
Of course, everyone is a hypocrite to some degree, so in a way they’re right. However, in the same way that there’s a difference between knowing we are sinners and being actively engaged in sin, there’s also a difference between knowing we are all hypocrites and being actively engaged in hypocritical lifestyles. And we need to overcome our hypocrisy before we can begin to help others.
It’s like those safety instructions the stewardess explains each time you’re on an airplane. (You know, those potentially life-saving instructions that you coolly ignore?) We’re told in an emergency to put on our own oxygen mask first before helping others put on their masks. Likewise, in today’s passage Jesus tells us to remove the log from our own eye before removing the speck from someone else’s.
Jesus is referring, of course, to sin in our lives. We can’t help others to turn away from their sin until we, trusting in God’s righteous grace to guide us, first turn away from our own. How can we explain to others how to overcome their sins unless we can see clearly to show them how?
Thankfully, through our trust in Jesus and His sacrifice on our behalf, we may be absolved from the consequences of our sin. But we need to continually be allowing God to show us where we need to make adjustments in our lives and trusting in Him to do so. God wants you to be free of hypocricy, as Christ was, and welcomes you to walk with Him on the road to holiness with Him as your guide.
Questions: Can you recognize hypocrisy in your life? And if so, can you commit today to paying more attention to God in order to eliminate such hypocrisy?
About this Author: http://thelife.com/experience/devotionalformen/authors/darren-hewer/
