What
is my Standard of Living?
17
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not
come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until
heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law
until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of
these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in
the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called
great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness
exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew
5:17-20
A
professional boxer was converted to Christ. He felt it was wrong to continue
hitting people but only knew boxing as a profession. So, he sought counsel of
the priests and the deacons. One responded, "Don't see why you can't
continue. Bible says that it's better to give than to receive."
We
are living in a world where people are constantly trying to reinterpret the
Bible. We need to interpret it according to the times we are living in but
while doing so should not remove the absolute character of the Bible.
Jesus
puts things in perspective here. Jesus is directly confronting the thinking of
the Pharisees. He wasn’t lowering the standard, on the contrary he was raising
it to where it belonged.
The
Pharisees thought that the standard of the Law was so high that someone had to
lower it. But Jesus says that it had been dragged down so low that someone had
to raise it again. Why did Jesus say so? We saw that when we discussed the
Beatitudes. It was because the Pharisees had turned the internal law into an
external one. Jesus was driving it back inside where it belonged.
Jesus
began his sermon with eight Beatitudes which were directed primarily at the
Pharisees and he closes his message in Matthew 23 with eight woes to them. One
woe to every beatitude that they didn’t respond to.
Are
we different from the Pharisees? I don’t think so. We too come under the banner
of being called Pharisees. Like the Pharisees we too might not get involved in
adultery, theft, murder or idolatry but we have a lot of impure and rotten
thoughts. We have hatred and jealousy and are cold in our hearts toward God. Our
inside is fouled up but we try to maintain the outside.
So,
Jesus is telling us today it doesn’t matter how religious we are, how nicely we
behave, we will be excluded from God’s kingdom. If not, our righteousness has
to exceed the external and self-centered nature.
We
are to examine our heart because it is very easy to get wrapped up in a
superficial kind of religion. When we look closely not just religion even our
life has become superficial.
How
then can we know that we are living at the same standards that our God has set
for us. Jesus has an answer for that. Jesus says that this is possible only
when the Word of God becomes our standard of righteousness. God never changed
it. Neither did Jesus. When Jesus came, he didn’t abolish the Old Testament, he
just restated its absolute and binding character.
This
Lenten season let us introspect. Have I lowered the standard of the Word of God by my living? Do I
give the Word of God absolute value?
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