“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? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” — Matthew 7:3-4
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The NBA season is starting to get good, and though it’s a long way until the end of the season, emotions are already running high when teams lose games. Sometimes it comes down to a referee making a bad call or a star player missing a shot at the buzzer. When we lose games we thought we should have won, social media fills with accusations about players who made a bad pass at a critical moment or failed to block out and make a rebound to prevent the other team from scoring the winning basket.
In reality, many of the 48-minute games probably could have gone differently if the ball wasn’t turned over so many times or if players made more shots. But playing the blame game won’t help the future trajectory of a team; it’ll only divide it.
Often, we as Christians can get caught playing the blame game in our own lives. But if we want to be better in the future, we need to leave our grudges in the past and resist the urge to carry them into our tomorrows. In fact, God commanded us to delete our grudges permanently and not replay them in our minds (Leviticus 19:18).
Though it can be hard to let go of our grudges, we know we appreciate it when others forgive us when we wrong them. When we carry grudges, we cause unnecessary stress for ourselves.
As our Savior looked around, He saw people wasting a lot of time and energy trying to straighten out others while missing the point that it’s more important to focus on doing right and then pray for others. Jesus used an example to encourage us to look in the mirror before criticizing someone else. “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? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3-4). We can’t make the world a perfect place and we also have enough personal faults to keep us occupied for a long time.
Therefore, the Lord urges us to stop meddling in other people’s business and take care of our own responsibilities. Do we still hold people accountable and plead with people to turn to Christ? Yes we do, but we do so with a humble heart because we know we’re sinners too.
In other words, we please God more and have less drama when we work diligently on our part of God’s vineyard and don’t worry about what others are doing or not doing (2 Thessalonians 3:11-12).
If we want to lighten our load, we need to listen to God. The Lord wants to help us and not harm us. When God says to stop grumbling and focus on gratitude, remember that God loves us and knows what’s best. When we do that, we will be a light for others. “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’ Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky” (Philippians 2:14-15).
Life is better — and we bring more people to Christ — when we stop griping and instead glorify God by practicing His ways. What are the areas you need to surrender, or people you need to forgive, to live fully in 2026?
— Bill Kent, Pastor of Memorial Baptist Church, Sylvania, Georgia
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