Following are short excerpts from “The Calvary Road” by Roy Hession that speak wisely to much of today’s postmodern evangelical environment in which anything that might be critical is termed as ‘judgmental’, or ‘non-encouraging’ and thus, unwelcome or forbidden conversation.

“That friend of ours has got something in his eye! …how painful it is until it is removed! It is surely our part as a friend to do all we can do to remove it. We should be grateful to him, if he did the same service for us.

In the the light of that, it seems clear that the real point of the well-known passage in Matthew 7:3-5 about the beam and the mote is not the forbidding of our trying to remove the fault in the other person, but rather that reverse. It is the injunction that at all costs we should try to do this service for one another. True, its first emphasis seems to be a condemnation of censoriousness, but when the censoriousness is removed, the passage ends by the saying, “Then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”

But what did Jesus mean by the beam in our own eye? I suggest that the beam in our eye is simply our unloving reaction to the other man’s mote.”

It’s not about the validity of ‘mote removing’, it’s the ‘why’ of our wanting to be the ‘remover’. If that attitude is other than a loving desire to remove hindrances to our brother or sister’s spiritual growth, or righteousness zealousness for the Father’s house’, it just might very well be questionable.

There is also risk involved in this manner of expressing of love for your brother or sister, even with utmost love! That friend just might take offense, play the ‘judge not’ card, resulting in a lost friendship (hopefully only temporarily)!

Then you must ask yourself, which is most important, the spiritual growth of your friend and the honor due His name, or your friendship. Therefore, HANDLE WITH PRAYER!