Matthew Seven.4

Control starts with judgment Matthew 7:4
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?NIV I never thought of this before but 9 times out of 10 I bet the plank is judgment.

God of my world is the name of this chapter. One part in this chapter that really struck out to me is where he says "judgment is the pathway to personal idolatry. When we impose our judgments on people it causes them to bow to our will. If you are the god of your world then most likely you are under a lot of stress. If you are the person in your home that imposes change through control, then you are the one that has to keep the changes in place. Have you ever had to say "I do everything?" I can give an example for me. I am not this way now but I used to be. It would happen when I would ask a child in my home to do the dishes or take out the trash and they wouldn't do it in my time frame so I would do it myself and then gripe about having to do it. Here is the part that really spoke to me. When we usurp the Lordship of Jesus in the life of another, It is impossible for that person to experience God's grace, (because we are in the way) which empowers him to make the needed changes. It is a cycle of failure. We want our friends to change and family to change, but we end up getting in the way or better yet we are getting in the way of Holy Spirit.

usurp \yu̇-ˈsərp also -ˈzərp\ vb to take the place of by or as if by force : supplant 〈must not let stock responses based on inherited prejudice usurp careful judgment〉 vi
: to seize or exercise authority or possession wrongfully The definition of usurp is very strong and I never real knew what the word meant So what happens next after we get in the way of Holy Spirit? Eventually, people fail to change and when they don't change then we create new judgments about why they are not changing. Then those judgments bring more pain and disappointment to our own lives. When we decide why they are not changing then we reach a verdict and begin our sentencing and then our judgment becomes reality.

Whew!!!!