“Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”
— Matthew 7:3
A speck is just a small particle of something, like chaff, straw, or a splinter. In this parable, it’s a sin but not a flagrant rebellion upon which other sins and one’s life has been founded upon.
Often, our sins become a foundation for a way of life we begin to follow or make our life be centered around. It’s not a way of life that glorifies God. It’s self-centered. This way of living becomes quite noticeable to other people. They begin to associate the sinner as the one who does that action, whatever the sin is. Their beam is big and very obvious.
Often, a person will find a sin in someone else so that the focus of other people is on that person instead of him or herself, the beam-blinded sinner. They forget that by pointing their finger at the speck-obstructed person that four fingers point back to themselves.
God’s focus never moves away to another by our pointing fingers. He sees us and knows us. God knows our hearts and our sins. He experiences the pain of our beams and specks.
Confessing of our sins to God and repenting of them provides the pivot point for Him to remove each of these elements of sin. God’s removing the beam and speck only at confession doesn’t mean He cannot remove it before then. It means we’ve gotten closer to Him by seeking Him with our whole being and asking Him to remove our sins by confession and repentance. We’ve returned to the place where we choose Jesus to be our foundation, not the beam.
