Brother’s eye

P 3121 The kindness of God.

/ DVH

Almighty God’s kindness is not an open-door to live however we want … mainly because a lot of what the Lord says in the bible is definitely not lovey-dovey! That’s why I put that giant chunk of scripture on the page below today. Wherever we are reading – the gospels, or the Epistles, we can see that sin separates us from Him, other people, and His wisdom. However God didn’t wink at sin in the Old Testament either — His plan for mankind deliberately included permanent provision for dealing with it in the New! Our Saviour JESUS! Because the Lord is Who He is and He gave His all—He has an expectation that we will obey Him and trust Him. He sent us the Holy Spirit to guide us, and so He does not have to prove Himself, or His love, or His faithfulness! HE ALREADY DID.

Romans 2:1-7: “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, forbearance and patience, not realising that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when His righteous judgment will be revealed. God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honour and immortality, He will give eternal life.”

His kindness is a pathway we must choose to acknowledge, and deliberately walk down, because it will lead us back to Him. After all, He is the One Who knows all things, believes all things, and hopes all things; especially when we focus on how much the Lord has been good to us… instead of our perceived injury or injustices. That’s when we begin to change our focus from what the other guy did—to what we have most likely done, because we’ve become aware of this blooming great log in our eye reminding us! His kindness  has already been released toward us, we don’t have to pray it down, it’s already here. Now we act on it using our faith. These actions only run into difficulties if we hate to admit we are wrong and we refuse to move on.

Hubby said something really insightful about that yesterday, it reminded me of Jesus’ illustration in Matthew 7:3-5. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” If we can see it then we have it too, and ours is probably worse than the other guy!

It isn’t the plank that obscures our vision … although it does! It’s the fact that we will go to great lengths to distract ourselves from dealing with our own sin – in spite of any immediate discomfort. We can easily identify what someone else has done because we’ve done it ourselves … that’s how we know what their splinter is! Have you ever had something in your eye? I don’t know about you, but the world stops for me until I get whatever it is out! I couldn’t possibly see, think or say anything, because that awful pain takes all my attention. Having something in our eye, is a no brainer … it makes itself known and it can’t be ignored. 

Sometimes that unacknowledged plank/log takes up so much of our focus and attention, that anything we think we can see in someone else’s eye, is totally immaterial – because we are in no actual shape to help them. Or even accuse them. The reality is we can’t can’t see anything properly because of our own unacknowledged pain and impaired sight. We have been blinded by a huge, sinful, judgmental attitude.

We can also get irritated because we can identify the splinter, but we simply don’t want to deal with our own plank! At that time we are definitely more likely to hurt the person who has a speck, simply because we can’t see properly! However, when we get rid of our own log, then we can help someone else with their smaller injury. And we will probably deal with things in a more kindly fashion, because the memory of our own pain is still fresh!!

When God tells us we have no excuse, we need to believe Him! That rebuke is His kindness in action, sent to lead us back to a position of humility and reconciliation with Him. However, our own pride will quite quickly make us fall over, and we can end up sitting on the floor wondering how we got there! Pride causes us to imagine that we can handle anything, because we sort-of kind-of, know it all. Sometimes we even barge into someone else’s life, acting like that we know  – when the reality is our plank means we can’t see it all! 

I don’t particularly care what anyone’s qualifications are… we have been told respect and love one another as a priority, and the Holy Spirit won’t take anyone else trying to do His work, lightly. He has a far sweeter, kinder touch than we can ever hope for. After He has dealt with us, we will be humble when we help someone else.

These things in the bible are not suggestions—the Lord Jesus Himself took the road of humility and look what He accomplished. We are privileged to watch the Expert handle this life in ways that may seem foreign to us, as we read the book! God’s kindness will lead us into repentance. Go after that. Bye. 👋

P 2869 Dealing with ourselves.

/ DVH

Luke 6:41,42: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”Now that’s what I call ‘plain speaking!’

Here’s a good suggestion that may be helpful. The next time you can see a glaring fault in someone else’s attitudes and actions, ask the Lord to show you WHY you can see it. That kind of ‘sight’ is not discernment it is judgment.  It is a mistake to see verses like these as something that may be true … but “I don’t think I do that.” In your dreams!

This verse clearly says if you can see it in someone else then you’ve got it yourself. It’s the old ‘familiarity breeding contempt’ idea. That means we actually recognise that fault because we are personally well-acquainted with it! An attitude like that is contagious – it’s like paspalum in your lawn – it takes over everything! Even your thinking and responses. 

You know it doesn’t say that you can’t gently help someone else along if they are caught in an eddy of indecision, or they’ve stepped off His pathway one way or another. But sometimes we can be so busy minding someone else’s business we fail to see the blooming great train of our own dumb actions thundering toward us! I’ve found asking ‘why can I see that?’ … is incredibly useful. I learn about me, and the Lord loves me through the bits I may have carefully cultivated for my own protection. 

We need to learn that our mistakes are not fatal, otherwise that negative connotation will distract us away from our main purpose, and occupy all our thoughts. Those things will pull us away from the very real kingdom assignments God sends our way. Humbly and quickly, repent and repair any damage you may have done to someone else, and see those mistakes as opportunities to understand and know more about the Lord and His ways. And don’t forget to check out your own dirty linen at the same time.

Remember, if we can see it – we have done it too!! BUT, focussing on any sin defeats our primary purpose – we are here to walk with the Holy Spirit the Way Jesus walked with Him. Because of what Jesus did for us, we can own what we’ve done, deal with our sin and get it out of our way so it doesn’t trip us up!

This scripture from Luke 6 is piercing. Judgment is such a sticky substance. Falling or walking in to it is like stepping into a pot of treacle – getting out becomes extremely difficult.  At the same time our enemy stands at our elbow handing us reasons why we have a right to be there. You know, sometimes I think that the other guy doesn’t have to do a great deal, he just stirs up the stuff in us that has been cultivated over the years, and then he walks off. he knows full well how easily we can be seduced “by the dark side …” 

The wonderful thing about the Holy Spirit is that satan’s ways are immaterial to Him. The Holy Spirit is incredibly busy revealing Father God’s word, and His ways, so most of the time … I hear Him say stuff like: “Watch out, those thoughts will trip you up!” He really IS the very best kind of Friend we will ever have. He watches our backs for us.

It’s great when we tell our friends at church about the wonderful things God has done for us —but I have personally noticed that we rarely hear testimonies about how the Lord helped us to overcome this or that, when we felt trapped by the enemy. Those things are our very real testimonies that have God’s power upon them to set other people free. Living this life differently to everyone else around us, is an incredible thing. And the Holy Spirit loves to be around humble, open, honest people … His very Presence opens up doors when we talk to others. 

Jesus is not telling us to ignore wrong attitudes in those around to us, instead He is warning us that there is a trap in dabbling in judgment. We will personally miss an opportunity to change – we do not have to get caught up in stuff that pulls us away from Him! But, when we deal with ourselves, we are in a better, kinder, position to help someone else. Bye 👋