THROUGH CLEAN WINDOWS
Matthew 7:3-5
“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? 4 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? 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.
We were guiding in Colorado one year and we were on a private ranch that had a good elk population. We had to drive along a neighbors fence line to get to much of the best hunting. One afternoon we had to drive close to where a bowhunter was in a tree. All afternoon we drove back and forth past him. He didn’t know what we were doing as he watched us go back and forth. Finally, one time he saw us coming and he climbed down out of his stand and came over and very angrily began to ask us if we had any idea what we were doing and if we even knew how to hunt elk. As he was right in the middle of telling us that we didn’t know anything about elk hunting when the last of our trucks pulled up with a huge record book bull elk in the back. The hunter tucked his tail between his legs and shuffled back towards his tree stand.
He wasn’t aware of the fact that we were driving back and forth to get more help to get the big bull out of the woods. If he had approached us with a different attitude, he wouldn’t have looked so foolish and been embarrassed in the end.
Recently my grandson shared this little story with me...
A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside and says, "That laundry is not very clean; she doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap."
Her husband looks on, remaining silent. Every time her neighbor hangs her wash to dry, the young woman makes the same comments. A month later, the woman is surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and says to her husband: "Look, she's finally learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this? "
The husband replies, "I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows." And so it is with life... What we see when watching others depends on the clarity of the window through which we look.
There is a time to remind a Christian brother or sister that they are living with a sin issue or are walking close to the line of sin and in danger, but that is different than judging others without examining ourselves first. If we are always looking out for the other person’s well being and their safety first, we are ok with helping.
God tells us to make sure our life is in working order before we start looking to clean up someone else's life. Many times the pharisees tried to charge Christ and His followers with blasphemy... Christ put them in their place.
Don't be like the pharisees... Look within at our own hearts, before you start to look around at other's lives.
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