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View Full Version : For Thought and Meditation - Tuesday, August 03



Pine Baron
08-03-2021, 06:02 AM
Good morning all. I must confess to being guilty of this message. Have a safe and blessed day.

Tuesday, August 3, 2021 - Pastor Greg Laurie
Obstructed Vision

“And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye?”
—Matthew 7:3–4

Show me a condemning, hyperjudgmental person, and I’ll show you someone with a sign of possible sin in his or her life. In fact, the thing they’re always criticizing other people for actually may be their issue. Maybe they’re projecting their own sin onto others.

Jesus said, “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3–4 NLT).

In other words, we cannot see a single speck in a friend’s eye if we have a telephone pole in our own.

I think Jesus was using humor here to make a point. Certainly a camel going through the eye of a needle is a humorous illustration (see Matthew 19:24), and this is as well.

Jesus was saying, “Why are you looking for a tiny piece of sawdust in your friend’s eye when you have a telephone pole in your eye?”

We’re so quick to go after minutiae in another Christian’s life when we are guilty of a lot worse in our own lives. And maybe the reason we’re so quick to see sin in someone else is because we’re so familiar with it ourselves.

Jesus was saying, “Don’t be that person. First confess your own sin.”

Forgiven people should be forgiving people.

And if we’re so quick to judge, then are we prepared to be judged with the same type of judgment we use for others? Because Jesus also said, “For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged” (Matthew 7:2 NLT). So be careful.

Wayne Smith
08-03-2021, 08:17 AM
Consider what we have all literally prayed in the 'Lord's Prayer' - "forgive us our trespasses AS WE FORGIVE OTHERS!" Never thought of it that way, eh? But this is what God says repeatedly - and we have echoed perhaps without realizing it.

USMC87
08-03-2021, 08:22 AM
Amen, I have been guilty of this and have been corrected by God!

dverna
08-03-2021, 09:18 AM
I cannot forgive many sins just because I sin too, or because some passages in the Bible proclaim we should do so.

In part it comes from not being able to accept all sins are equal.

For example, I can forgive a person for a "white" lie, but should I forgive a person who lies under oath?

Should I forgive a person that kills another person...how about if they kill a child? How about my child?

A pastor at a church I attended had an affair. Is he fit to lead a congregation? What if he had the affair with my daughter? Do I still forgive him?

God's grace extends to all sins regardless of how heinous they may be. In that respect all sins are equal to God except for the sin of denying Him. For that sin, there is no grace. Even God has a limit.

God will accept abortionists into heaven if they accept Jesus. Likewise for a person who murders my child. Or is that incorrect? I cannot forgive those acts, even if God wants me too. I am not wired that way and I do not want to be wired that way. Some sins MUST be punished or we will not have a civilized world.

We have churches "doing their good works" facilitating illegal immigrants. I judge them as foolish do-gooders harming our country in the name of God. Maybe the Democrats are closer to doing God's work than I will ever be. Luckily, God will grant me grace for my selfishness and for the huge telephone pole stuck in my eye.

Boaz
08-03-2021, 10:56 AM
Good message to begin my day , thank you !