Who Am I Doing This For

Matthew 7:3-5: And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother*s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 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.

It is often easy for me to see that other individuals are not doing what the Lord wants them to do. It occurred to me that I might ask them the question who are you doing that for? and it might wake them up to the fact that they are doing things for themselves and not for God or for others. And then it occurred to me that I should not ask that question of others until I ask it of myself. If I only want to ask that question about the activities of others but not about my own activities I am a hypocrite, I am not serving the Lord and I am not serving others.

Philippians 2:3: Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

Esteeming others better than self can be very difficult.

1 Corinthians 11:31: For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.

If I judge myself properly, I will know a whole lot more about my own sin than I will know about the sin of others. I can only see the external sins of others. And I should be seeing my internal sins as well as my external ones. I should be able to see twice as much of my own sin as I can see of others. When I am considering my own sin it will be easier for me to esteem myself less than others. And it should be easy for me to esteem God better than myself. When I am pricked in my conscience about some sin of my own, asking the Lord to forgive it and having the joy of knowing that He has forgiven it, I am not likely to be judging others wrongly.

As I remembered a few of the things I did yesterday I asked the question Did I do that for myself or did I do that for the Lord or for someone else? I was disappointed at how many of them I did for myself and pleased that I did a few of them for the Lord or for someone else. It occurred to me that it would be very helpful if I ask myself Who am I doing this for? BEFORE I DO ANYTHING. Then I won*t be so disappointed about what I did yesterday.

Care to discuss Who Am I Doing This For with Ron?

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