Friday, 8^th September, 2023

Bible Reading:  Matthew 7: 3-5

Memory Verse: And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? Matthew 7:3 (NLT)

So a story was told of a king who called his subjects to a feast. The king promised to provide enough food to feed the entire village, however, he said he wouldn’t provide them with any wine. In order to strengthen their sense of community and foster togetherness, the king asked that the wine be provided by the villagers instead. He put a very huge pot at the village square and asked that each household poured a keg of palmwine into the pot. If every household donated a keg, they should have enough wine to last them for the entire feast. On that appointed market day, the villagers started trooping to the village square to donate their quota. Now, the king decided not to have this process supervised. He trusted his subjects to act accordingly.

You only needed to declare your attendance after you must have poured your keg into the pot. While this was going on, one man thought to himself, “If no one is supervising the donation of the palmwine, why do I need to donate at all?” He reckoned, “If everyone poured a keg of palmwine and I poured a keg of water into the pot, no one will know, and my keg of water would be but a little dilution to the wine and it wouldn’t make any difference.”

And so he did. He poured a keg of water into the pot instead of a keg of palmwine. The days passed, trickled down until the feast day finally arrived. All was well at the feast until it was time to drink the wine. Lo and behold, it was only water! Because while he thought his keg of water would go unnoticed since everyone else was pouring in palmwine, others also thought the same. So in the end, they had to drink their pot of water throughout the entire feast. Who could they complain to? The king? He had nothing to do with it. They had brought this mischief upon themselves.

A number of lessons:

1. Be your brother’s keeper.

2. Change starts with you.

3. Be the first to initiate the change you desire.

4. Honesty starts with you.

5. Many times we are the number 1 culprit of the system we claim to criticize.

Quote: Remove the log in your own eyes before trying to remove the speck in others 

Prophetic Decree: May the Lord make you a pioneer of change in your nation, in Jesus name.

Prayer Focus 

1. O Lord, start a new thing in my nation but please start IN me.

2. O Lord, please start a new thing in my community, and please start WITH me.

3. Lord, please help me to be honest with myself, in Jesus name.

4. O Lord, help me to conquer myself even as I conquer the world, in Jesus name.

5. I receive grace to be a prisoner of my own conscience doing the right things always, whether I am seen or not, and whether I am applauded or not, in Jesus name.

BIBLE IN ONE YEAR:  Ezekiel 37-39