All who are faulty here show that they are unable to exercise full control over their mind. Carelessness is a sign of the lack of such control. In the case of such persons, their mind is scattered and confused. Their thoughts become tangled up, and they have no power to concentrate. Because of this, they tend to forget and are inconsiderate in their dealings with others.

Paying too much attention to one's own self is also a major reason for negligence in this area. In order to benefit himself, such a thoughtless person disregards the needs of others. When people are asleep, he makes noises without any thought that he might be disturbing others (sometimes, in fact, these may even be sounds of prayer and Bible reading!). In gatherings, he causes people to have to wait till he has concluded his private affairs. To protect his own name, he slanders others; to preserve his own profit, he defrauds other people. Due to a lack of the spirit of the cross in his life, he consciously or unconsciously neglects other people and is not thoughtful of them. Sometimes he may do things out of an honest heart; nonetheless, how these actions of his embarrass people!

Frequently we may deem our thoughtlessness as being a characteristic of straightforwardness and something without guile. But rudeness is not a fruit of the Holy Spirit. What a saint should do is to seek to be considerate in all things, be thoughtful to men, sympathetic to their problems, and cause no embarrassment to anyone.

The cross of the Lord and the Holy Spirit have the power to refine, causing the roughest of us to be gentle. Except one is truly dead to the self-life, he is not able to be considerate in all things and thoughtful towards all men. Only when dead to self will he not think of his own right and be willing to suffer to seek the other's profit. We should exercise our will to control our mind so that we will not be negligent and forgetful of other people's needs. The principle at work in us should always be: "So then death worketh in us, but life in you" (2 Cor. 4.12). The spirit of the cross must indeed be our standard!