Jul 3
The other day, a retired minister told me how his denomination had adopted “boundary training” for their ministers in the nineties. This dis
Have we destroyed discipleship this way?
seen from Australia
seen from Taiwan
seen from Türkiye
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Türkiye
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from T1
seen from Malta
seen from China
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from T1
seen from Canada
The other day, a retired minister told me how his denomination had adopted “boundary training” for their ministers in the nineties. This dis
Have we destroyed discipleship this way?
“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 7:3-5 📜
An often overlooked truth about this verse is that we need to deal with our own mess in order to effectively assist others with their mess. Which is revealing in the sense, because so many believers are not helping anyone. Is it because there is an inherent fear of exposing how unclean we really are in the process? That our holiness is but a whitewash. We can’t give what we don’t have after all. So it’s no wonder we turned seek and save the lost into seek and criticize the lost. There is nothing sacred about that approach, it is human nature. It is a product of the sinful nature of the flesh. Even the secular world does that.
Imitating/following - 2026.05.14
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” -John 13:34
One must ask if we are truly loving as Jesus did, and do we even ask ourselves what that really means? He always tempered his love in truth. Yet so often we just patronize people, and accept their self destructive behavior as not to offend them. Or the opposite extreme of forcing submission without concern for sincerity on their part. Either extreme is only tempered in our comfort, not his truth. By denying uncomfortable truths, or whitewashing a mere illusion of truth, our love is anything but Christ like.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,” -2nd Corinthians 1:3
Is this verse permission to choose an easy life, or a challenge to do hard things knowing God has our back in these “broomtree” moments? (1st Kings 19)
Keep reading.
“who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.” -2nd Corinthians 1:4-7
Remember, Elijah wasn’t excused from his mission. He was granted the strength to carry on. Yet many of us never start in the first place.
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son
