Lovingly

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

LOVINGLY

Luke 6:41-42

41 "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? 42 How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

The truth as plain as it gets. Surely neither we nor our brothers have anything even remotely like a speck or plank in our eyes, but sin on the other hand we both most likely abound with. The truth here is a simple one, but yet difficult to master. We can easily see everyone else’s offenses, their wrong doing, or attitudes, especially by their words or deeds. We can quickly know the other person is a gossip, for example, and we just have to tell someone about it. There is that truth. How can we be so quick to judge others and yet not able to judge ourselves? Jesus is telling us that we need to be spending the time in self-examination rather in brother examination. Will we ever be completely rid of that plank in our own eye? Jesus tells us that in order to remove, or help our brother overcome his sin, we must first overcome ours, and in this example Jesus is using, ours is far greater than our brothers, because we are judging them. Is it judgmental if our desire is to show them the errors of their ways because we love them and want them to be the best they can be? Once again, the point Jesus is making is that the reasons for our helping our brother seems not to matter, as long as we have that plank in our eye. So how do we deal with the scripture which tells us about a brother caught or overtaken in sin, we should gently and humbly restore him, but carefully so that we are not taken in by that sin. Jesus also tells us that if a brother sins against us we are to go to him privately and if he listens we have won him over, but if he doesn’t then take a witness and then if he still refuses to listen, tell the whole church. So how do we justify that truth with this truth? Which are we to do? Both. Again the point here is to be truthful with ourselves first, not thinking we are free of all offenses or sin. This spiritual pride is the greater of sins. This hypocritical attitude of thinking we do not sin in thought, word or deed is so very dangerous to our own walk with the Lord. Yes, we can help others see their sin, but knowing and admitting our sin in the process keeps us humble and gentle, as well as non-judgmental in our helping our brother. That whole truth Mathew records of Jesus teaching about going to a brother, is for the point of restoring them, rather than punishing them. Love must be the first motivation for all action. Whatever we do we must do it lovingly.