Every time I see something right in another man, it tends to minimize me, and it makes it easier for me to have a proper creature-to-creature relationship.  But each time I see something wrong in others, it is dangerous, for it can exalt self, and when this happens, my open fellowship with God falls to the ground.  So when I am right, I can be wrong.  In the midst of being right, if self is exalted, my fellowship with God can be destroyed.  It is not wrong to be right, but it is wrong to have the wrong attitude in being right, and to forget that my relationship with my fellowmen must always be personal.  If I really love a man as I love myself, I will long to see him be what he could be on the basis of Christ’s work, for that is what I want or what I should want for myself on the basis of Christ’s work.  And if it is otherwise, not only is my communication with the man broken, but my communication with God as well.  For this is sin, breaking Christ’s second commandment to love my neighbor as myself.   

This remains true even if the man is desperately wrong and I am right.  When 1 Corinthians 13:6 says “Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing”, it means exactly what it says.  When we find another man to be wrong, we are not to rejoice in his wrongdoing.  And how careful I must be, every time I see a situation where I am right and another man is wrong, not to use it as an excuse to scramble into a superior position over that man, rather than remembering the proper relationship of fellow creatures before God.  

Thoughts developed or used directly from the work of Schaeffer, Francis. True Spirituality . Tyndale House Publishers, Inc