May 12

“Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way.” — Rom 14:13

Instead of keeping our eye ever on others, looking for faults and mistakes in them–we are to look to our own example, lest something we do may hurt others’ lives, or cause them to do wrong. If everyone would do this, it would go far toward making a paradise of this world of thorns and briers. We easily get in the habit of overlooking our own faults, or imagining that we are well-near perfect, while in reality our life is full of inconsistencies. We poke at our neighbor’s eye, to pull out some little mote we imagine we see in it, while at the same time we have a great beam in our own eye which sadly disfigures us, and is a reproach to us in the sight of others! “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?” Matthew 7:3

The habit of judging and condemning others–is usually a great deal more serious blemish, than are the things we so glibly point out as flaws or faults. The first duty of every Christian is to make sure that he lays no stumbling-block in others’ way. It is said that Rutherford Hayes did not carry a watch. When he was a young man his watch was twice stolen, and the thief each time was arrested and imprisoned. Mr. Hayes then resolved never to wear a watch, because twice his carrying one had made a temptation for another. We may call this excessive conscientiousness–but we can scarcely overdo in this duty.