Learning from Jesus' Questions - Critical Heart or Merciful Heart?

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? Matthew 7:3 NIV

Jesus reminds me that I often pass judgment on others and avoid examining myself. I plead guilty! Ruminating over the minor issues in others is much easier and perversely "satisfying" than dealing with the issues in my own life. Discernment is always important, but not when clothed in a critical spirit.

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus leaves no room for criticism as He opens up the glaring failings of my own heart in saying that if I have thought it, I have done it. Jesus wants to cultivate in me a merciful heart instead of a critical one. Will I open my heart to let Him dig up stones and pull weeds?

Will you join me in letting Him do this work of cultivating a merciful heart?

Dear Jesus, I open my heart to You. Show me the plank in my eye and then help me remove it.

Sharing the journey with you,