Matthew 7:3-6 "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."
I remember as a child, I was once talking about some fault I had seen in someone else. Hearing my comments, my grandfather remarked to me, “Boy, you just remember that it is always easier to see the dirt on the other man’s coattail.” I never read today’s scriptures without thinking of that incident. My grandfather’s words were the country version of Jesus’s words in verse three.
A mote is defined as a dry twig or piece of chaff. In other words, it is a little piece of dust. Most of us have had the experience of being outside on a windy day and a speck of something being blown into our eye. Sometimes it is so small that it is difficult to see, and we need help to get it out.
Jesus said we are quick to want to get the dust our of our brother’s eye without considering that we are in a worse condition. Until we recognize and CORRECT the problem that we have, we are in no position to judge the case of our brother. Jesus said that when we do this, we are a pretender or an actor taking on the character of something we are not (hypocrite). Until we deal with our own shortcomings, we have no right or time to be dealing with someone else’s.
Dear ones, we cannot attempt to apply the word of God to others when we are failing to apply it to our own lives. We make a mockery of His word when we do so, and men will simply trample it under their feet. They will turn our own words back on us, and we will suffer the greater hurt because of it. Let us seek to be aware of our need for Christ and mold our lives according to His counsel before we attempt to correct the lives of others with His word.