²¹ you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? ²² You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? ²³ You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? ²⁴ As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Romans 2:21-24)

I have a problem with self-righteous people. Those people who teach about God while failing to acknowledge they are right there alongside those who they are teaching.

I’ve sat before preachers who try to be pastors. A preacher is someone who stands up and spouts off about the Word of God but has no humanity in them for others. A true pastor takes care of their flock, knows failures are across the board, and has humility.

One time we were looking for a new pastor. During that time we had guest preachers come in to fill the pulpit while we searched for who God wanted us to have. This one man came in and started yelling and shouting, started running down our church as a bad place. He apparently thought this was a good way to audition for the church. A big downfall for him was he worked with the relative of someone on the pastor search committee and bad mouthed us to her. He thought he was better than we were.

The truth is no one is actually better than anyone else. We just all are unique individuals. I like to share the Word of God with all of you from time to time, but I know the truth. I know I’m as guilty of things as anyone else. Even if the sins I commit are only in my mind, I am still thinking about them. I apparently want to do them so that’s just about as bad as doing them. And that goes for anything. You might be angry and want to fight someone and beat them up. That’s just as bad as doing it, perhaps even worse because more than likely, in your mind, you beat them up worse than you could in reality.

All of the problem solving of the world starts with ourselves. It starts in our thoughts. How do we solve a situation? How do we speak to someone? How we go about doing anything, starts in our minds.

We have to think right before we can do right. To think right we need to realize we are thinking wrong.

This week pay attention to where your mind goes.

• Does it go to positive places?
• Do you think of uplifting things or venture into the negative world?
• Do you enter into the selfish part of your personality more than the selfless part?

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Each time you find yourself going to the negative and non productive places, begin to think the opposite. It starts with your thinking. Men, if you find yourself looking at a woman and thinking things you shouldn’t, start thinking of her as a human, as a person with troubles, as a sister, a daughter. Attempt to think of them in respectful ways. The key here is to try. You’ll fail a lot. But you will succeed some of the time.