Consider the Log
Jesus and Jiu-Jitsu // Devotional #67
It’s the day after your quarterly performance review, and you’re still mulling over a critique you can’t quite level with. Sure, the quarter had been slow, but it was slow for everyone. One moment from the meeting plays on repeat, when your boss looked at you and said, “It just seems like your focus isn’t where it needs to be.”
Out of all the issues discussed, including areas of praise, the only thing that sticks is this one moment. You start looking for examples that invalidate the critique, building a mental case that highlights just how wrong he is. Without much effort, you come up with what feels like a fully formed response, then replay the same moment in your mind’s eye with your new response locked and loaded.
This time, instead of nodding along in reserved compliance, you deliver your reply to the mental image of your boss, feeling both justified in your response and yet unsatisfied with the results. You run the mental exercise a few more times, and by the time you get to work the next day, it seems genuinely absurd that anyone could disagree with your point of view. Not only that, but you’ve also begun to shift from building your case to building a case against your boss, using his own critique against him.
With your self-righteousness in full bloom, you request a follow-up meeting and spend the next half hour telling your work buddy about all the things you’ll say to your boss, completely oblivious to the irony of it all.
I wish I could say I’m writing this as someone who knows what this is like purely in theoretical terms, but the truth is, I’ve had moments just like this, and my guess is you have, too. We’ve all experienced times when an unjust critique feels more like an unprovoked attack, putting us on the defensive and prompting us to draw our swords in response.
In the days that follow, we often think that if we could deliver the right line, in the right way, at the right time, we could somehow find victory over what’s currently causing us pain. So we spend our mental energy fixated on what they said, never realizing that what hurts us more isn’t what they said but the pride dwelling in our hearts that keeps us blind to our sin.
Jesus compares this unseen sin to a log sticking out of our own eye in Matthew 7:3-5:
3 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? 4 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? 5 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.
The irony of Jesus’ words wasn’t lost on His audience, and it shouldn’t be lost on us. The image Jesus gives is of a person with a two-by-four sticking out of their skull who has the audacity to point out the speck in his brother’s eye. It’s meant to be an absurd mental image because that’s what we’re like when our pride blinds us to our sin. Everyone else can see it except us.
Because our self-righteousness keeps us from believing we could truly be guilty of such offenses, when we read this passage, we read it as if we’re the person with the speck. Then we cycle through our mental Rolodex of those who’ve wronged us to figure out who Jesus is really talking about in this passage, because it certainly couldn’t be us.
Yet more often than not, what looks like a speck to us is actually the better half of a Douglas Fir growing out of our socket. Our offense seems so small because we’re really good at minimizing our sin and explaining away our inadequacies. Over the years, we’ve learned to deflect and diminish not only others’ critiques but also the concerns they’ve tried to draw our attention to.
But Jesus’ assumption here isn’t that we’ve got a couple of little things to work on that we might otherwise ignore; it’s that we are the ones with the log in our eye. Jesus wants us to see that the same self-righteousness that minimizes our sin is the same self-righteousness that maximizes the offenses of others. It’s the same pride that makes a scorched-earth response seem justified, convincing us that their sin is the greater issue, not ours.
When Jesus calls out the hypocrites in the crowd, we should be wary of thinking he’s speaking to others rather than directly to us, because the very heart that believes his admonition is for others is the same heart that is blind to its own need for grace and to the source of that grace. Instead, we should receive Jesus’ rebuke as a grace in its own right, one that seeks to expose the hidden nature of our pride and entreats us to go to the foot of the wooden cross, where we rightly see our sin and our Savior.
Take time to consider these questions:
When was the last time you replayed a critical word from someone else? What did you believe was a justified response to their words?
Why is it so hard to see our sin for what it is, and why is it so much easier to point out others' flaws and faults?
How is Jesus inviting you to come to Him so your sin can be exposed and removed? What areas of sin do you find yourself consistently deflecting and diminishing?
As you end your time, ask for the humility to receive from others a true word of correction, rebuke, and even critique. Ask that the Lord would be so kind as to provide those in your life who might love you enough not only to point out the log in your eye but also to point you to the Savior. Thank Him for the grace found in Christ, which is great enough to cover all our sin.
