To many baseball fans, George Steinbrenner was the emperor of the “evil empire”: the New York Yankees. He fired more people than most will ever hire. But to Rick Cerrone, former public relations director of the Yankees, George was someone entirely different. He says, “Not a lot of people know this, but he would hear of a story, read about someone in the newspaper who was having a hard time, and he would find them and help them, without getting any credit. He picked up random people’s medical bills. He was a very magnanimous, generous person.”

I would have never thought this about Steinbrenner if I hadn’t read Cerrone’s quote. I’m reminded that I often am guilty of pigeonholing people and judging them unfairly. Am I the only one, or do you struggle with the same thing?

A man thinks his wife is losing her hearing. A doctor suggests that he try a simple at-home test: Stand behind her, ask her a question from different distances, and see when she can hear it. The man goes home, sees his wife in the kitchen facing the stove, and asks from the door, “What’s for dinner tonight?” No answer. Ten feet behind her, he repeats, “What’s for dinner tonight?” Still no answer. Finally, right behind her he says, “What’s for dinner tonight?” His wife turns around and says, “For the third time—chicken.”

Jesus taught us to look at our own shortcomings before we blame others.

Did you ever try to pull a bucket up a well? You know that, when it is full of water, you can pull it easily so long as the bucket remains in the water. But when it gets above the water, you know how heavy it is.

It is just so with you. While you are in sin, you do not feel it to be a burden. It does not seem to be evil. But if the Lord once draws you out of sin, you will find it to be an intolerable, a heinous evil.