Day 4: Corrected vision
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 (Luke 6:42).
Sovereign God, Omnipotent Father, Lord God Almighty, true and just are Your judgments (Revelation 16:7). Nothing in all creation is hidden from Your sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account (Hebrews 4:13).
Yet, in Your great love and grace, You pardon sin, You forgive, and You delight to show mercy (Micah 7:18). But the very forgiveness we receive, we are reluctant to give. It is so easy to pick up the weighty stones of judgment, ready to cast, and crush and condemn. And often, under the guise of friendliness, and helpfulness, and concern, we hide criticism, pride, superiority, religiosity, hypocrisy.
But You, O Lord, know the secrets of the heart (Psalm 44:21). Even when all our ways seem pure to us, You weigh our motives (Proverbs 6:2) and cause us to confront our own sin, our own hearts, our own lives.
Through His earthly ministry, the Lord Jesus constantly instructed, challenged, and corrected in matters of the heart. In His teachings in The Sermon on the Mount, He shows us the contrast between merely following the Law, and the authentic inner desire for the holiness of God (Matthew 5-7).
He draws us to a new standard, Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48). He directs us away from religious pride and hypocrisy, and shifts our focus to our own need for forgiveness and grace.
Lord, all a person’s ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the Lord (Proverbs 16:2). So You challenge us to remove our planks, and our beams, and our logs, and You offer us the corrected vision of love, and forgiveness and grace.
O Lord, forgive us our preoccupation with sawdust. Touch our hearts, heal our eyes!
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