Thoughts for another day

March 7, 2007

Today's verse: Mt. 7:5. 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. (KJV)
(Pls. read the above before you read further. Thanks)

Character Assassination. We Christians are pretty familiar with this term and indulge in it too isn’t it? How easy it is for us to take a person and just add a few sentences to his or her name and slur their images.

The strange thing is that, the best of us do it. There are many of us, me included, who do this, most of the time, not unwittingly, but deliberately. Little do we reflect on our own lives and see the corrosion in our own characters wrought by our sins; yet, how we love to fling mud on others.

Jesus is very categorical when He says, that we must cast out the beam from our own eyes, before we look at the splinter in the others’ eye! If I were to look at my own life, I see so much dirt in it. Long back I heard a preaching saying: If you were to draw the sketch of your life on a huge white canvas, would you open it up for public viewing? Wouldn’t there be many areas you would like to hide under thick coats of paint? How true it is. We humans are a mixed bag of weaknesses and strengths. More weaknesses than strengths, and we do all kinds of immoral and unrighteous acts which, we don’t want others to know. Yet when our ‘enemies’ do the same, those very acts become outrageous! And of course, the whole world needs to know and through our tongues!

Reflect on your own life my friend and when some very ‘juicy’ news comes your way, please don’t spread it for how do you know it is true? Even if it was true, why should you spread it? What kind of pleasure would you get in demeaning the character of another person? Aren’t we Christians supposed to forgive? Lets get down to basics and learn what Christ has to say about these things. I urge each one of you, those who are observing the period of Lent and even those who are not, to make it a point to learn to respect all human beings just as Christ did and give them one more chance. Do you remember the adulterous woman in Ch. 8 of John’s Gospel? How Jesus forgave her? Do likewise this season and truly Jesus will say, ‘Salvation has entered her heart.’