How can I learn to stop blaming others for my problems?

Take sides fully with your true Master against the sin which is both His enemy and yours. This means you must not excuse yourself in the least degree for giving way to sin, nor blame it on anything or anyone else; but blame yourself fully for it. Let it be stressed that this is a vitally important matter, for far too many defeat themselves by not honestly taking the full blame for their failures. Notice Romans 6:21, and compare Job 33:27-28.

“I have declared my ways … ”. Have we told Him all? Our failures, our vain efforts? Our struggles and defeats? Have we left anything unconfessed? Are we willing to judge the root-cause of our defeat? Confession is not only that I tell the Lord my faults, but that I accept myself as I really am, without any pretence and without any excuses.

But He reminds us of what we easily forget. If others are a trial to us, are not we a trial to them? Are we not, unless walking according to the light, as dull to see our own faults as we are sharp to notice, and even imagine, wrongs in our brethren? How pungently the Lord puts the case that we may loathe ourselves! "And why lookest thou on the mote in the eye of thy brother, but observest not the beam in thine eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote from thine eye, and, behold, the beam is in thine eye?" The Shepherd and Bishop of our souls thus holily strips us of the mask which failure in self-judgment puts on. For if before God we discern not our own grievous shortcomings and sins, we do not know our brethren with anything like the same certainty and clearness. Love therefore and the fear of God call us each to deem others better than ourselves, judging ourselves for what we do know instead of others for what we know not and ought not to think. "Hypocrite," says the Lord with severe reproof, "pull out first the beam out of thine eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

And why, then, do men see the little mote in their brother's eye? Because they do not see the great beam in their own.

In 1 John 1 we have the difference between confession and forgiveness. Coming to God merely to seek forgiveness may or may not be accompanied with full confession. In making confession to Him, forgiveness is not the first thought of the one who thus draws near to Him. If it is merely forgiveness that is sought, circumstances and feebleness will be pleaded as excuses, in order that a ground for forgiving may be presented other than what there is in Himself. But in true confession there is no question of the force of circumstances, nor of one's own feebleness. And with the Christian this goes still further; for there is consciousness that grace has been left on one side, and that there has been lack of dependence upon it, and that self‑will and pride have led away from Him and His grace into the commission of that which is being confessed. There is thus no question of circumstances, nor of one's own weakness; no question of the temptations or trials surrounding one. It is a question solely of "Thy grace" and my self‑will. His grace would have kept me; I refused it, thought nothing of it, and did not count upon it as needful for me. His power would have kept me, but I looked to another power, and left the place of dependence. Thus I placed myself in the temptation, and fell. I allowed it, and why? If I look upon the circumstances, and shelter myself behind them, I am taking refuge behind lies; and the one that has to do with God says ever, "Away with all refuge of lies; let the be real with God; it is with Himself alone I have to do."

The way out of all this entanglement is a very simple one, however unwelcome it may be. He has but to judge himself for what he is, to escape out of his captor's hands. Self-judgment would justify the holiness and righteousness of God, and make him find in his miseries, not the effect of God's indifference as to him, but of his own sins. It would make him also at least suspect the certainty of his own conclusions, which so many selfish interests might combine to warp.

We have to take care that we go not before God, lest we might find ourselves in detail, if not in the main, against God. We must not break that which is bruised by yielding to personal or party feelings. What a danger this is. The inevitable effect of a judging spirit is that we get judged ourselves. The soul, whose habit is censorious, is universally ill spoken of. "With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged." Then the Lord puts a particular case: "Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" (ver. 3). That is, where this proneness to judge is, there is another still more serious evil — an habitually unjudged evil in the spirit, which makes the person restless, and desirous of proving others to be wrong too. "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?" (ver. 4). The mote, of course, was but little, but it was made a great deal of, and the beam, an enormous thing, was passed by. The Lord is bringing out, in the most emphatic way, the danger of a suspicious judicial spirit. And He shows that the way to deal rightly, if we desire the good of His people and their deliverance from evil, is to begin with self-judgment. If we really wish to have the mote out of our brother's eye, how is it to be done? Let us begin with the grave faults we know so little, corrected and confessed, in ourselves: this is worthy of Christ. What is His way of dealing with it? Does He say of the mote in our brother's eye, Bring it to the judges? Not at all; you must probe yourself. The soul is to begin there. When I judge the evil that my conscience knows, or that, if my conscience does not know now, it may learn in God's presence — if I begin with this, I shall then see clearly what concerns others; I shall have a heart fitted to enter into their circumstances, an eye purged from what unfits the heart to feel with God about others. "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" (ver. 5). This may be found in a believer, in principle; though when the Lord says, "Thou hypocrite," He alludes to the evil in its full form; but even in ourselves, we know it in measure, and what can be more opposed to simplicity and godly sincerity? Hypocrisy is the most hateful evil that can be found under the name of Christ — a thing that even the natural conscience writhes under and rejects. "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."

The Lord Jesus now shows his disciples with a most distinct picture how foolish the one is, who thinks to judge his brother/neighbour looking down on him. The mote in the brother's eye is the false (thing) which one thinks to recognise with him. But the beam in the eye is the evil in the own heart which one oversees deliberately and which is yet clearly to recognise. An experienced brother once said: 'I do not know as much evil of anyone as of my own self. This makes me careful in judging others.'

Verse 3 supposes a case where there is a very serious evil overlooked by a person in himself, and a much smaller thing taken notice of in a brother — a defect, a splinter, as one may say. Here it is some defect which one thinks he has detected in another. And the one who has not judged himself is altogether unfit to deal with another. "He that is spiritual" is the one to restore, if another is overtaken in a fault. The one self-judged before God is conscious that whatever another has done he is capable of doing the same or worse. "I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing." Hezekiah was left of God that he might know all that was in his heart, and what awful failure ensued. Nothing worse could happen to us than to be left to ourselves. Get the large thing removed first, the thing which hinders you from seeing clearly; and most likely you will find the mote in the brother's eye is gone too. Very often these motes are discovered by those who are in a bad, sour, state of soul. And if we really do see failure in another what is the best use we can make of that discovery? To correct it in ourselves. Then may we help our brother.

That this might be so, a spirit of self-judgment is to be cultivated. Our natural tendency is to judge others and perceive their smallest faults. If we judge ourselves we may discover some very substantial faults. And faith fully judging ourselves we may be able eventually to help others.