I'm reading an awesome book called A Banquet in the Grave by Ed Welch. It’s a book on faith based addiction recovery used by the CCEF institute.
Anyway, here's a great lesson I got from pg.77-
In Matthew 7:5 Jesus says, "First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brothers eye."
I had understood this analogy as a command 'Not to judge others faults'. But this book introduces the second half to that, 'How to counsel to others'.
The author says: "Seeing our own faults does not disqualify us from confronting the other person in love. Rather, Scripture indicates that confessing our own sin is the very thing that does authorize us to speak to another about his own sins. It is only then that we can speak in a way that is not judgmental."
So I went back and read the scripture again and notice it does say, "and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brothers eye." So that's pretty cool.
One lesson you learn in a lasting recovery is that helping yourself will help others, and helping others will help yourself.
The 12th step in AA says, “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”
It's just nice to be shown the 2,000 year old backing for that.
2 Corinthians 12
ReplyDeleteI will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. . . . in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
one will never understand Jesus as all we need until Jesus is all we have
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