There’s something in MY eye.

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.

Matthew 7:5

We’ve all got some vision problems when it comes to judging others. We tend to ignore our own faults while easily finding fault in others. Jesus calls us away from hypocritically passing judgment upon others in order to humbly practice self-examination first. This is because we tend to be blind to our obvious sins.

The picture Jesus draws is both tragic and comic. One person wants to truly help another person get a speck of something removed from his eye. And that is a difficult and common human experience. All of us have gotten something in an eye, and in the days before Visine, having a friend to help remove the speck was useful. But Jesus’ illustrations shows a bigger problem. It is impossible to get help from someone for your frustrating speck, when they’ve got an enormous log poking them in their eyeball!

And so it is with helping a brother or sister with a shortcoming. I’ve got even bigger issues to manage! Jesus DOES NOT say NOT to help another person with their faults. But He does say to make sure you are dealing with your own sinful problems first. The log in my own eye will get in the way of helping my friend. I have to take the gospel to my own heart first. I confess my own wrongs. I admit my own needs. I deal with the log my friend may point out. I humbly offer help after this, and I don’t rush in with my sawmill slab protruding from my own face! True discipleship relationships require mutual accountability, confession of sin together, willingness to hear insights from one another, and then growth occurs as we remove logs before specks, dealing with personal sins and relational struggles in order to honor Jesus and avoid hypocrisy.