Others

Hello, well this is a first, I am actually writing this blog post on my I Pad sat on a train on the way to my Girlfriends for a weeks holiday. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to use the bluetooth keyboard I bought months and months ago, but have yet to really use! So if this blog comes out in a funny format you now know why!

This week I have been reading a book called "The Common Peoples Gospel" By a Salvationist man called Gunpei Yamamuro. He was a Salvation Army Officer who wanted to spread the gospel to his native Japanese people. So who wrote this book which aims to introduce people to the Gospel. Its a very good book and has sold millions of copies since it was released in 1899. 

Its still a great book over 100 years later and is well worth a read. One thing I read in it this week has really stuck in my mind and made me think. So here is a quote from the book:

"If we stop dealing with other people's sins and start examining ourselves we will know how sinful we really are. The purest person is the one who fully and sorrowfully acknowledges the sin in his heart"

 Now I find that quite hard to take in, not because its wrong, I think it is 100% true. Its because it means quite often the way I act and my outlook on life is often totally wrong!

This quote is also extremely Biblical, as we read in Matthew 7:3-5 that Jesus said;

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. 

I had to go for the King James Version there as it is the only version I have available offline. But the verse basically says how can you comment on the sin of others, when your vision is blurred by your own sin! 

Now again I find that really hard teaching. Its so much easier to comment on others and anything we may perceive as sin in their lives or actions. However perhaps we should instead be looking at the sin in our lives.

Imagine how much of a difference we could make if we concentrated more on banishing sin from our own lives rather than trying to comment and have digs at others about the sin in their life.

I think that is something we should all aim to do, and certainly something I aim to try and do this week.

The Sailing Salvationist