What is your Splinter?

Change is good for the soul…

Change is hard to do…

Not everyone likes change…

Change yourself first….

 

All the above are statements we all have heard at one time or another, or at least something similar to that anyway.

And all are true, change is hard, not everyone likes it and it can be good for you, as long as the change is positive. And that’s the key to it all, it has to be positive, for you and for your soul.

 

Matthew     Chapter 7:1-5

 1 “Stop judging, that you may not be judged.

2 For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the

measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.

3 Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye,

but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?

4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that

splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye?

 5 You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye

first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from

your brother’s eye.

 

In Matthew we see Jesus talking about taking care of our own problems first, before we accuse others, what he is saying is change yourself, remove what is bad in you, before you help others or accuse others.

 Jesus sure was a wise man, if he where alive today, Jesus could charge $100.00 per seat to give motivational talks, and sell out the house… But we seem to forget that the bible contains all we need to know, all we have to do is look for it.

 So what is are your splinters?

 

• Drugs
• Drink
• Sex
• Porn
• Shopping
• Sports
• Church

 

You probable where with me on the list above until I got to sports and church… Most likely I lost you there… But people can use anything as a splinter, something from keeping them from seeing clearly.

 Sure a sport can be our escape from reality, we can live through the sport, use it to avoid life, and the same can be said for church. I see many people who use church as a way to escape the world that is not what it’s there for; rather church is there to help you enter in to the world. But that is off topic a little, back to changing and removing the splinter…

Jesus calls us to a deep conversion, a deep change. We are called to leave behind all we have, and everyone we love to follow him. We are called to care for our enemies and to pray for those that persecute us. We are called to a change that radically converts us from a life of just being to a life of participation, one that forces us to do unpleasant things, and one that calls us to constantly change, to rise to the occasion. To become al that we are called to be. And Jesus doesn’t call us to be anything less then what we are, but rather he calls us to be greater then we can ever achieve, with out his grace and love.

 We are all called, by name, to be what God has planned for us, but first we must we willing to remove the splinters of our life from our eyes, so we can see clearly what God has planned for us.

 What are your splinters?

Paul