Matthew 7.3

Matthew 7:3
And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?NKJV

I had a guy tell me one time ….. He said God; please show me the log in my eye so I can see the speck in my brother's eye. Things are changing in me. I am seeing more and more situations where I would normally make judgments and now I do not. The truth is I did not even know I was doing it and nobody else did either. If they did then they did not say anything to me. Or better yet they did not know I was doing it either so they could not say anything, I had someone tell me today that this person had a good heart. The first thing that came to my mind was "how does he know what kind of heart he has?" We think that is not judging, but it is. What if he had said that person has a bad heart? We most likely would have thought that he is being judgmental. Only the Lord can judge the heart. Not man.

I just had a thought, when I go on Quest to serve it is very important to stay out of the Lord's way. I think I do a good job at that. Most of the time we will say "what is Holy Spirit saying or ask what does Holy Spirit say. It is so much easier to stay out of His way on an event than in real life back home. I say all that to say this. I sometimes get frustrated with people when I try to help them when in reality I am trying to fix them. The best thing that I can do is what I do on Quest. Stay out of the LORD'S way. The best way that I can lead someone in to a Godly transformation is to model that for them. Jesus with Skin on ….mercy, grace, love, and acceptance. Whew! Oh it gets better .. So if we are to be Jesus with skin on then that means that we want to be like God …. Right? The problem is in our concept of God (From the book)
you see, you become like the god you believe in. The voice of condemnation that you hear in your heart is not the enemy or God but it is self-criticism. Something I never thought about, that the book touches on is this. If we are experiencing condemnation in our hearts then we can't help but express condemnation to the world around us. If we feel love and acceptance we will give love and acceptance.
The last half of Matthew 10.8 says "Freely you have received, freely give" One of the reasons people do not give the love of God is freely is that they have never freely received it. So here is the big nugget out of this chapter for me.
Accepting the reality of God's love for me delivers me from the need to find fault in others. My sense of security is now the product of a relationship with God in my heart. As I relate to God from my heart and experience the empowerment of love and acceptance, I will be more apt to model that Love to other. I also will point others to God in their instead of pointing to their behavior. Now I can love you instead of blame you. Thanks for reading, Kevin