Logs and Specks

September 30, 2020

Leadership Notes

Do you remember Cliff Clavin from "Cheers"? If you're too young to remember, check out a few clips from the YouTube. He was the bar know-it-all. Trivia, obscure knowledge, and inaccurate information were all his forte. We are becoming a nation of Cliff Clavins.

Last spring, we became experts on infectious diseases. By the end of summer, we were experts on constitutional law. And just this past week, we became accounting and U.S. tax code experts. I'm still just trying to figure out how to be a better person.

Someone once said the answer to the question, how do we make society better? is as follows:

Each person doing battle with his or her own weaknesses and flaws.

Or, as Jesus put it, deal with the log in your own eye before worrying about the speck in your neighbor's eye.

I love how Natalie, who goes by the Twitter name "Kitchen of Oppression" {which is delightful}, says, "I think a big step in my sanctification was made when I stopped excusing some sins as 'personality traits' and realized while I may be more prone to certain sins, I don't

have to be a slave to them anymore."

We've all known people who say things like, "I just speak my mind," or "I'm just telling it like it is." I can almost guarantee you - here I'm taking the role of expert - that you are in the presence of a person whose default setting isn't grace or kindness. Those former attitudes are nowhere to be found when Paul talks about fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. I think Natalie is on the right track. The work of the Holy Spirit is to make us better people.

Two last things.

As we now enter the next season of the next Supreme Court justice confirmation process, I'm figuring the abortion issue might come up. While I'll have more to say on that down the road, here's a passage to get the wheels turning:

And Elijah came near to all the people and said, "How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." And the people did not answer him a word.

- 1 Kings 18:21

The more things change, the more they stay the same?

Finally, as the first Presidential Debate kicks off tonight {September 29} I was encouraged by these words from Pastor Garrett Kell:

No matter who holds the seat of authority in the White House, they will bow before the One who rides upon the White Horse. "On His robe and on His thigh, He has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords." {Revelation 19:16}

Come, Lord Jesus, come.

With Much Love and Affection,

Richard