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Matt 7:3-5

3 "And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5 "Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Today's devotional verses with Jesus' words are very real to me.
You see even as I am writing this I have something in my eye. I don't know if it's a small eyelash or a speck of dirt. But I have to tell you that it's very uncomfortable, and I just want it gone.

It's the same way with sin in someone's life. Sin is very uncomfortable and it hurts, and the one with the sin in their life can only think, "I want this out of my life."

But sometimes we attack others who have sin in their life. It would be like someone right now coming up to me with a baseball bat and saying, "Let me get rid of that speck in your eye."
Well, they would end up hitting me in the back of the head trying to knock the speck out, or jamming the bat in my eye to remove the speck. The end results would not be comfort, but more pain and the speck would still remain, now with only additional pain to my body.

It's the same thing we can do as Christians, wanting to help out others with their sin, and we may mean well, but we don't always think things through, and just jump in trying to remove their pain, but we end up causing more pain instead of helping.

So what do we do? Well with my eye someone who has had experience with dirt in someone's eye could come along and help, or someone could ask someone else what to do. Or sometimes you just need to allow your own tears to remove the speck.

How do we apply this to sin?
Maybe the person you need to minister to is going though something that you have in the past so you can be sympathetic and caring with them. Or maybe you need to pray for guidance and the Lord will bring someone to help or show you want needs to be done.
Sometimes it's just something that a person has to deal with on their own, crying out to God and repenting of their sin.

So next time you find someone in sin, remember how much it hurt when you had something in your eye and you wanted it out gently and with care. Then treat them the same way.
Because baseball bats are only good for one thing, that's playing baseball.

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