One of the ways we remain blind to our own need of a Savior is our obsession with how other people should think and behave.

Take a self-assessment: how many times in the last two days have we looked down on someone (or a group of people) for what they believe or how they acted?

The picture is not pretty. We are obsessed with how other people should think and behave. We talk about it, we roll it over in our minds, and we click our tongues at the talking heads on the tv and radio who tell us how others should live.

It’s blindness. We see “the speck in our brothers eye,” but ignore our the plank in our own. We are judgmental — it’s human nature. We live in the most judgmental age, because we now have more access to what other people are doing. And, of course, one of the most judgmental things we do is call other people judgmental.

This is a major area in which we must follow Jesus. He did not condemn, although he knew exactly how other people “should” live. He didn’t die for righteous people — people who were living the way they should. He died for sinners — sinners like us. And it is a tremendous gift to shine the lamp of “should” off of other people and onto ourselves. For what we see will not be pretty, but at least it will be real — and, pray for this, that there would be enough embarrassment to reach for a Savior.

This does not mean that we will have no standards (as if that were possible anyway). It means that our standards won’t come first before love and mercy. God’s standards led God to the cross — bearing the price of his rejected standards upon Himself. And all those who count on that sacrifice walk the same path: speaking the truth in love — looking to restore, not judge (Galatians 6:1-4).