As Christians, we like to help other people learn and grow. We like to see them mature spiritually, and be fruitful in God’s kingdom. Sometimes we find it frustrating that others just don’t see the things we see. We point out their errors, and still… they don’t get it.
It’s easy for us to see the specks in other people's eyes. At times, we want desperately to help them remove their specks. (We want them to experience Jesus in all His fulness, after all.) We want them to joyfully follow in obedience the road of love, mercy, and grace Jesus demonstrated for us on the cross.
In recent days, though, I've noticed more and more a lack of humility in the approach that we as the Body of Christ are taking.
Jesus said, "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." [1]
We might sometimes think, How can that person possibly not know that they have a log in their eye? It’s so big. It must be painful!
When I was a young, my father taught me a lesson in photography that I will never forget. I don't remember where I was, or even what I was taking a photograph of. I just remember the lesson.
I really wanted to take a picture of something. Let’s say it was of a tree. The problem was: the tree was behind a fence—a chain-link fence. I stood back, adjusted my framing, took a deep breath, and was about to take the picture… when my dad spoke up.
“You’re going to have a beautiful picture… of the fence!” he said.
He told me to go right up to the fence and take the picture. “If you do that,” he said, “the fence will be so close it will blur. Then your picture will of the tree, not of the fence.” [2]
As Val and I were talking this morning, it occurred to me that this is exactly what’s happening to the church right now.
Imagine a chain-link fence represents our sins. We’ve crept right up to the fence. In fact, we've gotten so close to the fence that we can no longer see it. Then we yell through the fence at those who we think have sinned. (We forget that we’re all sinners, saved by grace.)
Let's return to Jesus' metaphor of the log and speck.
What starts as a speck in our eyes can grow and cause more damage. Our logs slowly take over our vision, but we’re so close to them we can’t even tell they’re there.
It takes humility to stand back and say that we, too, have suffered and sinned. It takes humility to say that we don't know everything, and that we could be wrong.
Jesus, the ultimate judge, can see our specks and logs—all of them. But because our logs are so close to our eyes, we cannot see them. We cannot see the very things that are blocking our view.
Condemnation is easy. It’s easy to expect Jesus to cast the first stone. We do it all the time to those who do believe differently than we do. It’s harder to cast the first stone when Jesus starts pointing out the ways in which we, too, have erred. Like the Pharisees in John 8, if we’re honest about our sin, we too will simply drop our stones and walk away.
It’s then that Jesus' pointed grace says to the object of our hatred "go and sin no more." If Jesus can say that, then shall we not also ask Jesus to be our log-remover?
We cannot see the log, but He can. Let's let Him transform us, through the work of His Holy Spirit—so that we can be better "little Christs" in our communities.
NOTES
[1] Matthew 7:3-5.
[2] These days with the small sensors of our phones, we can take wedge our lenses between the links of the fence and avoid this problem altogether. However, that was not the case with a 35mm camera.
