Righteousness...

A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher. (Luke 6:40) 

Doing the right thing is not enough… many things are right but are not different from the right that an evil person may do. Loving your family and hating your neighbor can happen together, but to be sons of the Most High - who is kind to the ungrateful and wicked - an extra mile is required. The extra mile goes beyond logic and common concepts of right or wrong; goes beyond ‘fairness’ and gets into ‘righteousness’. The distinction between right and righteous it’s a powerful tool to shape a good person into a ‘godly’ person.

Doing the righteous thing is hard… sometimes goes against the normal and popular common sense we see around us. The call to love our enemies sounds foolish to the average man and woman who walk on the street; sounds foolish to the sense of protection – and even survival – we have embedded in our human nature. How can we do it then? We can’t.

It’s not about doing but about being. Being right is different form being righteous… Righteous deeds can’t come out of other than a righteous being; there is no other way. As good fruits come out of a good tree, the matter of becoming a righteous person is what enables us to produce righteousness. This transformation of the being, can only be achieved by the Holy Spirit as we ask Him, and – as good students – walk in commitment to follow the rules of the Teacher... we may stumble and sometimes even fall, but if we stand up again, clean up our messes, and keep going, the promise remains… everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.

Righteousness is not magic, it’s transformation, it’s a process, a commitment, a choice. It’s a gift given by the Righteous One who gave up his own righteousness to make it available to all those who are willing to call him Teacher and follow Him.

Challenge...

Today I was deeply challenged in my heart as I heard the story of a man from Lebanon who made a spiritual journey - as they put it - from ‘Jihad to Jesus’.

Stories of men being reconciled with God are different, some are harder, some are softer… what moves me is not their strength, is that all of them reflect the same awesome God, able to transform the very nature of all things, able to bring love out of hatred, hope out of desperation, purpose out of emptiness, character out of brokenness…  I know that God because He is the writer of my own story.

 

I have seen you in the sanctuary, and beheld your power and your glory.

(Psalm 63:2)

 

The challenge today for me was his voice… a voice calling me to Him.  It’s not an easy call; it’s filled with tears.  But is not a bad call either; it’s the most beautiful we can ever receive; filled with the certain promise of unfailing love and true joy by His side, the promise of His touch as He transforms us into instruments shaped for his purposes.  The only way we can ever answer this call is through a conscious choice; the choice of dying to ourselves in order to live for Him completely.  As Oswald Chambers states: nobody likes death, nobody dies joyfully.

 

But the voice of the God of the story I heard today has become irresistible.  It breaks me as it reveals the great divide of my heart; the separation that is produced by one force pressing in one direction to live for myself; and other force that presses in opposite direction crying from inside out to live for Him alone.  Tears flow over trying to fill the gap as they acknowledge the worthless efforts of my deeds, the weakness.  It is truly impossible for men to reconcile the great divide in the heart; but what is impossible for men is possible for God.  It is through Christ that all divides are reconciled.

 

Who can explain what is going on inside of me?  Who can understand what His voice is saying?  Who has experienced this before? 

 

As His voice calls, my heart answers, my heart surrenders… ‘Yes, whatever it takes… help me die… help me live for you’...  As the heaviness of these words renew my mind, the hard choice is not so hard anymore, it shifts, it's transformed  into a soft fire inside... it's a warm desire, the desire of my hearth... not yet strong, not yet completely unveiled, but for sure it is a new kind in the middle of the changing desires of a spoiled heart; this new desire is a 'certain' desire.

 

Battle is over.  God finally conquers.  My soul whispers ‘…is this true love?’

The answer would come later through a soft and familiar truth, yet full of new meaning…

 

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends

(John 15:13)