October 6, 2005

Good For Nothing

 

Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the dominion of heaven.  Matthew 5:20

 

I guess I really don't want to hear that I am supposed to be perfect, yet there is a theme throughout scriptures that points us toward perfection:

 

Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48

 

Now I like the way the New English Bible puts this passage from Matthew:

 

"There must be no limit to your goodness, as your heavenly Father's goodness knows no bounds."

 

There have been things in my life that I have just never been able to reach, to attain, to live up to. As I was growing up it was the reputation of my "big sister Ann". Every teacher in grade school held her presence. "Are you like your sister Ann?" was the first question teachers always asked, as she was the “smart” one!

 

Can you be as good as Ann? Can you be better? And then I married Jackie and it began all over again. God preserve us from all such vain comparisons! Yet here is the Bible and here is our Lord doing something not all that different. Can you be as good as the scribes? Can your righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees (who made a point by the way, of observing all 613 regulations in the Law of Moses)? And we're supposed to be as good as them, no... better than them? Ha!

 

Only in the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ can I find the strength to live a life of love.  And according to Jesus, that was the fulfillment of the law!

 

Prayer
Loving Lord, help me this day to be all that I can be and in your mercy, let me follow the more excellent way through Christ my Lord, to love as you did.  Amen.

 

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