I appreciate your comments from yesterday. I agree with most of what was said. Just on principle I disagree with anything Greg or Brady says but sometimes they leave me no choice but to agree. I think Brad made a very astute observation regarding the proportion of our love. Here, at least for me, is the difficult application.
Scroll through Matthew 5 and you begin to see the challenge of loving God more than yourself. Pay attention to the words of Jesus and you begin to understand the sheer magnitude of loving others as you would love yourself. Skip ahead to 7:12 and we learn the most important rule is "do to others what you want them to do to you."
When Jesus talks about anger, sexual sin, divorce, lying, retaliation, revenge and animosity he does so with three relationships in mind. Personal involvement and experience in these eight things (yes, there are others but I’m just trying to get a grasp on this one chapter!) damages my relationship with God. These attitudes, actions and experiences pollute me and this spiritual pollution keeps me away from an unpolluted God.
This pollution also damages me. God’s desire for intimacy and holiness has as much to do with his relationship with me as it does with my own personal, spiritual well being; not to mention the actual physical and emotional side effects.
This pollution also damages those around me. The pursuit of each of these eight things are never solitary experiences. They, without exception, find a way to damage those around me.
Every single one of these attitudes and actions are expressed because I choose me. It seems the most consistent choice I make is me and though it appeals to my selfish nature it is no way to live. Redemption gives me the chance to pursue what’s good for God and me, to pursue what’s good for you and me.
5 Responses to “The Difficult Application”
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November 3rd, 2006 at 11:21 am
The old saying, “It’s not about me” applies here. It’s about God and me and it’s about you and me. For those who claim to forgo the “hypocrisy†in the church by communing with God on their own, miss the point and the benefit of (as you said) “what’s good for God and me, to pursue what’s good for you and me.â€
November 3rd, 2006 at 11:27 am
I really don’t know what to write. You have honored me beyond words to set me right next to Greg.
There’s this friend of mine who love Pascal and Augustine. When he talks of the things you mentioned from the sermon on the mount, he say those action-thoughts destroy our capacity to love and, therefore, to imitate God. We choose to love God or harden our own hearts, making it more difficult for God’s love to break through.
Fortunately, it still can.
November 3rd, 2006 at 11:37 am
Go ahead and disagree with this on principle, but have you thought of studying another text? Just a suggestion!
Being like Jesus is always a struggle. Yancey has some great thoughts in chapter 6 on the people Jesus chose to be the 12 and how much of a disappointment they all were for three years. And they were walking with Jesus and receiving their training directly from the Master! Yet, in time, and through a process of transformation, they became what Jesus chose them to become. I have hope that we, too, will - through a process of transformation - become what Jesus calls us to become. In the meantime, isn’t it wonderful to walk in grace and realize I don’t have to get it all right. I just have to be faithful to the direction God is calling me and submit to the process.
And isn’t it great that I can give such simple platitudes to your struggle through Matthew 5? I think so!
But go ahead and disagree on principle. I need to submit this comment and get on with reading Brady’s!
November 3rd, 2006 at 12:12 pm
I’m sure glad to know I don’t have to get it all right!
November 3rd, 2006 at 12:21 pm
Difficult application in deed.
“Do unto others” I do because, like the disciples, my Teacher commands it. But over time, “do unto others” becomes easier, almost effortless. “Do unto others” becomes less a command and more a movement of the Spirit. That is when the relationship with God strengthens and we in the most minimal of ways can reciprocate “do unto others” with our God.