Forward Movement is an official, non-profit agency of the Episcopal Church whose mission is to create compelling content for Christian living. Since 1935 we have published the quarterly devotional Forward Day by Day, as well as pamphlets, booklets, and books that encourage and nourish people in their lives of prayer and faith.
MONDAY, October 4 (Francis of Assisi)
Luke 6:39-49. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?
An earlier verse in Luke, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged,” is sometimes misunderstood to mean that we can set no standards of behavior by which we govern our common life, and ought not protest against sin when it occurs. But to say that the fullest understanding of human action belongs to God is not the same as saying that we bear no responsibility for measuring, as best we can, our actions and those of others against Christ’s law of love. It just means that our human judgment will be flawed. Only God’s judgment is perfect.
Christians who ponder the morality of another must do so from a position of humility, an honest admission of personal vulnerability. God’s judgment is absolute; ours is not. Human judgment has been shown to be mistaken, and the norms of one age are not those of another.
I cannot avoid ethical choice and moral evaluation, but I can avoid making absolutes of the contingencies that make up the parade of human life. They are not the eternal truth of God, only the arrangements by which we manage our walk through life on the way to that eternal truth. One day we will know it for what it is, and our minds and the mind of God will be one. (1994)
PRAY for the Diocese of Igbomina (Province of Ibadan, Nigeria)
Ps 106:1-18 * 106:19-48; Hosea 14:1-9; Acts 22:30—23:11
View the daily Lectionary Readings at Satucket.com.
Or view the Bible passages at Biblegateway.com.
A Meditation for Pentecost
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