Righteousness- laying claim to our own will always fail us
Matthew {4:23} And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their
synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and
healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease
among the people.
{5:3} Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven
{5:10} Blessed
are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake: for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven
{5:17} Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the
prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. {5:18} For
verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or
one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
fulfilled. {5:19} Whosoever therefore shall break one of
these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall
be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever
shall do and teach [them,] the same shall be called great in
the kingdom of heaven. {5:20} For I say unto you, That
except your righteousness shall exceed [the righteousness]
of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into
the kingdom of heaven.
Following Jesus wherever He leads us is important isn't it? We think that when we say we no longer want God in our lives that He leaves just like that. Can you even imagine what life would be like if God left us based on our emotions, based on our suppositions? We are engulfed in the purest form of what we call living hell and cry out God has forsaken us, and yet, He hasn't. That isn't a barometer of our walk with Christ and yet people want to believe it is! People look at others and sometimes they say they deserve that misfortune for being so horrible, other times they say the poor dears, what'd they ever do to deserve that? We are so incredibly caught up in the blame game, the reasons for this and that, and we truly believe we have the power to control heavenly things by our actions without stopping to truly look at the whole picture.
Some of the sweetest people have the worst luck, and yes, I'm calling it luck. What exactly luck is I don't know other than either favorable or unfavorable circumstances and happenstances. Some people seemed to be born with a silver spoon meaning their luck is good seemingly no matter what. Some of the least moral people have the greatest luck.
And who do we blame for it all? God. We say God's looking out for that one, or God's turned His back on that one. What's the truth? The truth is found in Jesus. The truth is only found in Jesus. Our lives here - all the fortune and misfortune - all of it will not destroy the truth.
The truth stays the same no matter what happens to us, no matter what we do, no matter if we even turn our back on God, the truth remains.
The truth NEVER abandons us. We can turn our back on the truth, we can ignore the truth, we can accept the truth, we can embrace it and make it part of our lives no matter what the circumstances, easy or difficult. There is NO excuse for not accepting the truth. We can't say that if only this didn't happen, or if that didn't happen things would be different and I'd have the truth in my life. We can't say that because the truth is the truth, we can change the truth won't. When bad things happen to us it isn't God wagging His finger at us and saying- 'See if you weren't so bad this wouldn't have happened.' When we are rewarded with good things God isn't saying- 'See how good you are, let's give you a reward.' Life doesn't work that way, not in the day to day aspect of it all.
Yes, God punishes and God rewards I'll never say He doesn't, but it's not on the same basis as we think in rewards and punishment. We can't say, God didn't I do this.. and didn't I do that, so why are you making my life worse. If we get caught up in anything at all like that then we're lost because we are basing our walk with God on rewards, on the give and take. And we'll forever come up thinking that we are rather good so we should have a life of ease and goodness. Or we'll believe that we've repented and asked for forgiveness so we now deserve the good things.
Ultimately no matter how horrible or how wonderful our lives are, we have a choice to make and that choice is whether to believe in the truth, accepting the truth, living the truth in Jesus. If we choose not to live in the truth we may still have what we call a wonderful life. If we choose to live in the truth we may also have a wonderful life. And on the flip side if we choose not to live in the truth we may have a horrible life and if we choose to live in the truth we may still have a horrible life. It isn't a game of works. It isn't contingent upon circumstances though we often want to believe it is because it gives us someone to blame when things go bad, with the whole WHY ME syndrome. Or we get caught up in the I'm so good that's why I'm blessed, which is just as dangerous.
Whether you live a life in the worst or the best of circumstances the trap of believing God is with you or against you based on those circumstances is wrong.
Knowing, believing, that God is with you always no matter your circumstances is the truth if you accept it as such. Holding fast to the righteousness of God is the truth. Looking for our own righteousness isn't the truth. Waiting for ourselves to be righteous isn't the truth. The truth is Jesus and His righteousness, it is only Jesus and His righteousness that means anything at all. We can lay claim to Christ's righteousness only, laying claim to our own will always fail us.
4/28/10
2Co 1:2 Grace be to you...
What a saluatation!
Grace be to you. What does it mean to say that to someone? Grace be to you. It's the most wonderful thing anyone could truly say to another isn't it? Grace be to you. Grace is the whole message of our Lord's reason for taking on humanity and living among us, choosing to die so we could be forgiven and receive His grace, His forgiveness for our sins. Grace- undeserved forgiveness. Saying those words- grace be to you is bringing the message of Christ's love and forgiveness to others. We are to be ambassadors of Christ spreading the message of grace.
Remember this from my blog a few days ago--
'1Co 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
By the grace of God I am what I am. Grace is a REAL thing, not just something to mutter in prayer. Paul said- 'His grace which was bestowed upon me was NOT in vain.' Given this gift of grace, freed from sin, forgiven by the Lord, Paul used this miracle as we all should as God directs us. Paul said- 'but I laboured more abundantly than they all yet not I but the grace of God which was with me.' Paul laboured for Christ, but knows it wasn't of himself but by the grace of God with Him. Left to His own devices Paul would have continued to persecute Christ's followers. He knew this. By the grace of God bestowed on Him he lived and laboured. We can all have the grace of God given to us. Do we labour with the grace we receive to bring Christ to others? Can the grace bestowed upon us be in vain? God forbid.'
Grace be to you. Those words offer the knowledge of salvation. A beautiful message we should all be eager to bestow upon others.
It's easy for us to say 'good bye' to someone isn't it? The original context of that word is 'God be with you.' Yet it was shortened so that people no longer mean 'God be with you', they simply mean they are going away.
Saying God be with you is offering the hope to someone, offering God to someone which is what... offering the grace of God.
I don't imagine it would be easy to change our way of speaking and say 'Grace be to you' or even 'God be with you' if we aren't used to doing so. Is it something we might want to try though? We are to bring the message of God's grace to others by His grace. May the Lord guide us in this as we contemplate our words, our lives, our actions.
By the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior now and forever!
Amen.
4/28/11