Don’t judge others without looking at yourself. It’s much easier to see what is wrong with someone else than to look inward at yourself.
Change is not easy. And pride is more than happy to kick in and rear its ugly head to keep you from making a positive change to your life.
Making the choice to NOT make a quick judgment of another person can save you much stress and heartache.
When you remember: don’t judge others without looking at yourself first, it will change your life forever.
Pray hard about the situation, and ask the Holy Spirit to show you what to do. Pride and fleshly judgment should not have a part of what you say or do.
If you need to confront another person, do it with much love, caring, and compassion. They shouldn’t hear judgment from you as much as they can see that you genuinely care.
Luke 6: 41 – 45
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye but do not notice or consider the beam [of timber] that is in your own eye?
Or how can you say to your brother, Brother, allow me to take out the speck that is in your eye, when you yourself do not see the beam that is in your own eye? You actor (pretender, hypocrite)! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.
For there is no good (healthy) tree that bears decayed (worthless, stale) fruit, nor on the other hand does a decayed (worthless, sickly) tree bear good fruit.
For each tree is known and identified by its own fruit; for figs are not gathered from thorn-bushes, nor is a cluster of grapes picked from a bramble-bush.
The upright (honorable, intrinsically good) man out of the good treasure [stored] in his heart produces what is upright (honorable and intrinsically good), and the evil man out of the evil storehouse brings forth that which is depraved (wicked and intrinsically evil); for out of the abundance (overflow) of the heart his mouth speaks.
(These words of Jesus are taken from the Amplified Version with the ( ) being what the word means in the Greek. The [ ] are used to make the sentence read more clearly.)
When I read the story below I couldn’t help but think of how easy it sometimes is for me to see the faults of others and totally disregard my own faults. I want God to clean MY windows so that I can see clearly to get rid of the “stuff” in my life that He is not pleased with.
When my life is clean, He can use me to help others grow in their relationship with Him.
A Story – Have your Cleaned your Windows Lately?
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.
“That laundry is not very clean,” she said. “She doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.” Her husband looked on, but remained silent.
Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.
About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband: “Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this?”
The husband said, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”
