“Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.  Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

- Jesus Christ

(Matthew 7:1-5 ESV)

Let’s be frank and honest.  I’m one of those people who can naturally be very quick to judge others, especially my own Christian brothers and sisters.  I observe behaviours and attitudes with an air of pretentiousness without a hint of grace, I criticise quite scathingly at times either in my mind or verbally; I construct an invisible soapbox to air my opinions to denounce the fallacies of everyone (heck, why do you think I’m writing a blog?).  What I do not do so naturally is turn the big fat pointing finger towards myself.

The above passage of scripture is one that I’m obviously very mindful of and reminded about all the time, especially when I catch myself complaining about other people with specks in their eyes yet forgetting so often that I am the hypocrite with the log in my eye.

Confront.  Renew.  Empower.  Three words which Jesus was so good at doing.  He confronted many with the truth, he renewed people’s understanding with grace and he empowered others to do the same.  Yet I find myself so often only confronting and never renewing nor empowering.  It’s my prayer that in this early season of 2009 I constantly check myself to see if I’ve got a gigantic log in my eye before speaking to others about the specks in their eyes.

During my short time working at Edify, we’ve put together quite a few slogans in regards to what the initiative stands for and embodies for our promotional material.  Some examples are:

“Breaking the mould of soft, comfortable Christianity”

“Talk is cheap.  Walk the Talk”

“Biblical Justice. Participate or Spectate?”

I’ve been asking the question to myself that, ‘If I’m representing the DNA of Edify, does my life and faith match up with all that Edify embodies?’

• Is the Christianity I’m living still a very comfortable middle-class existence that doesn’t cost me anything in regards to my involvement, time and finance?
• Am I the sort of person that is full of hot air – always talking the talk about worshipping and following Christ but when it comes to the crunch my actions don’t back up my words?
• Am I the type of person that is concerned about justice because it’s the hip, trendy, Christian-bandwagon thing to do?
• Is justice on my radar because I’m receiving a wage to have it on my radar, or would I be getting my hands dirty regardless of my financial circumstance and availabilities?

As I start to write my thoughts in this blog (which will no doubt eventually admonish the attitudes, motivation and mindset of myself and others), I hope that I will constantly be reminded of Jesus’ words to continually analyse and assess myself, lest I become a Pharisee.  The world doesn’t need more hypocrites, it needs more disciples.

“The Christian is not one who has gone all the way with Christ. None of us has. The Christian is one who has found the right road.”

- Charles L. Allen

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