Daily Devotional

Most people think this verse means mind your own business and leave the speck alone. But that is not what Jesus says. He does not say ignore the speck; He says deal with your log first, and then go get the speck. The speck is real. Your brother’s sin matters, and someone who loves him eventually needs to help with it. Jesus is not telling us to stop caring. He is telling us to get qualified first.

The order is everything: self first, then your brother; inward before outward. The word hypocrite literally means an actor wearing a mask. What makes this man a hypocrite is not that he noticed the speck but that he is performing surgery he is unwilling to receive himself. He is all eyes for your sin and all blindness for his own. Dave Harvey, in When Sinners Say I Do, retells Nathan confronting David in 2 Samuel 12. Nathan was not a sinless man confronting a sinner; he was a sinner God used to pursue another sinner. There are no log-free helpers, only people who have dealt with their own log so they can see.

This is the heart of biblical counseling and of the church itself. We help one another take the log out so that we can see clearly and then go love someone else. The goal is never to win or to feel superior. As Spurgeon said, our love should always seek to produce reconciliation. The aim is never condemnation; it is always restoration.