Then with regard to dealing with others, some of us have found out the practical common sense of taking even injustice quietly and without resistance, of looking to our own faults first, and getting quite free from all resentment and resistance to the behavior of others, before we can expect to understand their point of view, or to help them to more reasonable, kindly action if they are in error.  Very few of us have recognized and acknowledged that that was what the Lord meant when He said:  “Judge not that ye be not judged.  For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged:  and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.  And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?  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?  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 comes with a flash of recognition that is refreshingly helpful when we think we have discovered a practical truth that works, and then see that it is only another way of putting what has been taught for the last two thousand years.

Many of us understand and appreciate the truth that a man’s true character depends upon his real, interior motives.  He is only what his motives are, and not, necessarily, what his motives appear to be.  We know that, if a man only controls the appearance of anger and hatred, he has no real self-control whatever.  He must get free from the anger itself to be free in reality, and to be his own master.  We must stop and think, however, to understand that this is just what the Lord meant when He told us to clean the inside of the cup and the platter, and we need to think more to realize the strength of the warning, that we should not be “whitened sepulchres.”

We know that we are really related to those who can and do help us to be more useful men and women, and to those whom we can serve in the most genuine way; we know that we are wholesomely dependent upon all from whom we can learn, and we should be glad to have those freely dependent upon us whom we can truly serve.  It is most strengthening when we realize that this is the true meaning of the Lord’s saying, “For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.”  That the Lord Himself, with all His strength, was willing to be dependent, is shown by the fact that, from the cross, He said to those who had crucified Him, “I thirst.”  They had condemned Him, and crucified Him, and yet He was willing to ask them for drink, to show His willingness to be served by them, even though He knew they would respond only with a sponge filled with vinegar.

We know that when we are in a hard place, if we do the duty that is before us, and keep steadily at work as well as we can, that the hard problem will get worked through in some way.  We know that this is true, for we have proved it over and over; but how many people realize that it is because the Lord meant what He said when He told us:  to “take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow will take thought for the things of itself.”