08/18/08

Good Morning everybody!

Why is it that we always want to look at someone else and what they are doing instead of looking at ourselves? I am not sure what it is in the human psyche but if one man is alone he may think about his own shortcomings and sins, but if you put another with him he will immediately start evaluating his new friend’s shortcomings and sins.

I see this in my kids, if I get onto one of them for something they immediately want to shift my attention and try to get me to look at the other one. Why is that? Well the answer is very easy but very complicated at the same time. We do this because to look at ourselves brings pain to us and calls us to fix us! To look at someone else makes us feel better about ourselves and therefore is easier than looking at ourselves!

The thing about this principle is that in Kingdom life it is like cancer. There are more churches and ministries that split due to the fact that everyone is looking at everyone else and not looking at themselves. Gossip gets started, and then people are discouraged and then people leave. Sometimes people who do not even know Christ yet! And when they leave we may loose a soul!

Jesus said in 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 the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust 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 speck out of your eye when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank our of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brothers eye.

Jesus is saying TONS of things in this passage! But I just want to point out three. . .

1.                          Whatever standard you use to judge someone else is the same standard that will be used against you! Now I am sure that Jesus is talking something much deeper than that which is on the surface, but what I read in this is whatever standard you set for your life, that is the standard people will look for in your life. For instance, let me pick on myself, when we work with kids from the children’s homes I am constantly on them to say yes sir yes mam no sir no mam. But at my home I do not require my children to say that to me and Beverly, but I do require them to say that to other adults. A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with a friend and told him I did not require my kids to say yes sir to me and he called to my attention that I did require it from the other kids. What an eye opener! Double standard! So I was not judged by what I said, I was judged by the way that I judged and measured! So when we look at someone else and we pick on their shortcomings we need to be inspecting ourselves because that is the standard others will look for in us.

2.                          Next if you are noticing a speck in your brother’s eye, then there is defiantly a plank in your own! What drives us to look at others and what they are doing is because we want ourselves to look better. How many times have you heard, “Well she don’t do this and he wont do that and they don’t help with this and if only she would do that and I cant believe that she said this and I cant believe that he wore that and bla bla bla bla bla bla bla . . . “ Almost every time you hear these kinds of things it is coming from a person who is doing these very things on a larger level! We see our own faults in other people because we want to feel better about ourselves!

3.                          Alright finally, both people have a problem, and both people have work to do, but we must fix our lives before we can ever help someone else fix theirs. In other words you can help someone get somewhere that you have never been yourself! Once we have worked and examined and worked some more on ourselves, then we are qualified to help someone else get past the same thing we struggled with.

Guys I am writing this because it is truth and it is in Scripture, but I am also writing this because whining about everyone else will kill our church. Please worry about yourself, and when you have overcome what you are dealing with in your own life then help someone get over the same things in their life.

I love you all enough to point this out, and I am the chief of doing this by the way. I am constantly finding fault in other people only to look inside of me and see that the very fault I find in them is the thing that need to get out of me! Nobody is perfect but Jesus and the more we let Him show through us the more perfect we will become by His perfection!

I love you all, have a great week

Pastor Jason Lyle 
The Open Range Church of Henry County 
Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.