Lord, I will learn the reconciliation of the heart. I do not get along with people, not because of their words or ways, but because of my heart. Jesus said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” (Matthew 9:4, Berkeley). I meet with failure when I attribute evil motives to people’s actions. I say, “He said, but he meant.” What I do not realize is that what I think he meant is nothing more than my suspicious nature at work. “Love thinks no evil” (1 Corinthians 13:5, author’s trans.). When Christ possesses my mind, His total love pushes out the dark and suspicious sides of my mind.
Lord, when will I realize that to judge (attribute improper motives to) my brother means that I am doing You as well as him a disservice? I am destroying Your image in him, for I must believe that You are working in him as well as in me. Judging others is the grossest form of self-worship. It says God is working in only me.
Lord, teach me what Jesus said about the mote and the beam. I see motes in others because I have beams in my own eyes. If I truly saw the evil in my own heart, I would not condemn; I would confess. I see now what Paul meant when he said, “To the pure, all things are pure” (Titus 1:15). My faultfinding means I have more to learn, more to grow, and more to do.
Lord, let me not be guilty of murder—murdering Your image in others by defaming their actions. I vow to look for Christ in others, as Bishop Whipple, a missionary to the American Indians, did, and let my relationship to Him condition my relationship to my brothers. When I do this I will be surprised to find two things: first, the increasing ministry I have to others; and second, “the beauty of the Lord our God” will be upon me just as really as I see His beauty in others (Psalm 90:17, KJV).
“But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God” (Romans 14:10).
Daily with the King 