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A Prayer About My Plank-Filled Eye

A Prayer About My Plank-Filled Eye
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “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. Matthew 7:1-5
Heavenly Father, when I rubbed my irritated eyes this morning I soon realized it wasn’t a speck of dust, but a ruff hewn board stuck there. I didn’t realize it till now, but I went to bed last night having made myself the chief prosecuting attorney in the supreme court-the judge and jury and executioner. Just because I don’t throw things, scream and yell, doesn’t mean I’m not a critical person. Condescending smugness is just a synonym for loveless clanging cymbals.
So my cry today is, have mercy on me, Lord Jesus. You who are forbearing, kind and gracious, have mercy on me, the self-righteous sinner. My self-righteousness usually doesn’t show up in trying to merit more of your love but in withholding your love from others. The dark irony is, the sins that offend me most in others are the very sins most pronounced in my own life-a lack of mercy, unbelief, a critical spirit… I wish those were the only ones…
Lord Jesus, oh great gospel-cardiologist and ophthalmologist, bring your grace and truth to bear in my heart and my eyes. I want to love as you love and see as you see. I neither want people to feel pressure to change who are around me, nor do I want them to feel my indifference and disengagement. Teach me and lead me in the third way-the way of the gospel.
Since you do call us to help one another with our “specks of sawdust,” help me be a first-responder to the life-giving rebukes of friends; a humble recipient of the grace-kissed reproof of those who long for my freedom; someone who anticipates, welcomes and acts on the daily, evenly hourly call to gospel-repentance. So very Amen, I pray, in Jesus’ name.

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