This Sunday’s readings: Matthew 7:1-6

Reflections

Just because they annoy you doesn’t mean they’re wrong!
~ Oscar Auliq-Ice, writer, philanthropist

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson in His Journals

It’s not at all hard to understand a person; it’s only hard to listen without bias.
~ Christopher James Gilbert, 1987- , Musician, Author, Philosopher

You meet Noah after the flood, you think, That brave, faith-filled, visionary man. You meet him before and you’re like, What a nut job.
~ Courtney C. Stevens, Author, The June Boys

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God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.
~ Vance Havner, 1901-1986, pastor and evangelist

Jesus instructed us to take the beam out of our own eye before we take the speck out of our brother’s (Matthew 7:5). In this way, He told us that the battle is not only against others, it is also within ourselves. Facing the deeply embedded evil of our own hearts is where the most bitter fighting occurs. It’s like a civil war. Your enemy, your old self, is a dearly beloved friend you really don’t want to kill.
~ Dan Allender, Tremper Longman, Bold Love

The marvel of grace is that we are all inflicted with the same cancer as those we are called to love. We are called to be ophthalmologists-eye doctors who see a disease in the eye of another and are so committed to removing that speck of cancer that we knowingly undergo the same surgery to remove the mass in our own eye in order to remove the disease in the other.
~ Dan Allender, Tremper Longman, Bold Love