BBD 07.07.14 Eye Cleaning (New)
Posted by: theburningbushdevotional <theburningbushdevotional@...>
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The Burning
Bush Devotional
07.07.14
Eye
Cleaning
Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall
not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given
to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be
put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be
measured back to you. - Luke 6:37-38 NKJV.
And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not
perceive the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother,
“Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,” when you yourself do
not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank
from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in
your brother’s eye. For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad
tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not
gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good
man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man
out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the
abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. - Luke 6:41-45 NKJV.
In the
Sichuan Province of China, it is a common practice for the people to have their
eyes cleaned. You might think that if you were going to have your eyeball
scraped with a sharp blade you would go to an optometrist or ophthalmologist.
In Sichuan Province, if you want your eyeball scraped with a razor you go to a
barber! For centuries, barbers in Sichuan have practiced this ancient tradition
of eyeball scraping and it is said that having your eyes scraped, “Makes the beauty of life more visible.”
In addition to the scraping of the eye, a small metal rod is inserted under the
upper and lower eyelid. The rod is moved back and forth to clean the eye
further. The entire eye cleaning process only takes about five minutes. The
barber uses the same razor for shaves, and if you are worried about
cleanliness; he does disinfect his instruments every night. (Chengdu Business Daily Newspaper 04.17.14)
If you have been on facebook for very long you will have seen
statements like this: “Only God Can Judge
Me.” If it were only true! People are in the judging business and
continually make judgments about others from their clothing to their actions or
non-actions. While I was a parole officer, I was present in court many times
when judges rendered verdicts often sending defendants to prison. Why did those
judges in courts render those verdicts? Verdicts are rendered because the
defendants were guilty of criminal violations. Why do people often judge in
their minds other people? People judge others because of the perceived violation
of societal norms or moral values.
Jesus tells us to “Judge not,
and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned.
Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” The
type of judgment that Jesus is referring to is revealed in the context of the
passage. It is the judgment of a hypocrite that Jesus is warning against. It is
possible that some do not understand their own sin when condemning others. King
David is the example given to us in 2 Samuel 12
where the prophet Nathan confronts David with his sin with Bathsheba and the
murder of her husband Uriah. Nathan bluntly confronts the King by courageously
saying “You are the man!” Finally, David comes
under conviction for his sins. In 2 Samuel 12:13-14
we see the result of the confrontation and of those sins, So David said to
Nathan, “‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ And Nathan
said to David, ‘The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.
However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of
the Lord to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die.’”
If you
are a hypocrite, and all of us probably have been or are at one time or
another, maybe you need an eye cleaning? King David had an eye cleaning when he
was confronted by the Prophet Nathan. The NKJV has Nathan telling David, “You are the man!” The old KJV seems more powerful as
it puts the condemning statement in this way, “Thou art
the man!” David was the man who committed adultery and orchestrated the
murder of Bathsheba’s husband Uriah. David had an eye cleaning as the “plank” in his eye was removed by God’s truth delivered
by the Prophet Nathan. Before we condemn, before we judge, it would be well for
us to check our own eyes to see if there is a “plank”
in them somewhere. If there is, God’s Word is an excellent eye cleaning tool, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than
any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of
joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart
(Hebrews 4:12).”
Copyright © 2014. Ed Wrather. The
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