It isn't only the other nations surrounding Israel that have
stumbled and fallen, it is the Lord's people as well, but not all of them. They too are under judgment and yet the Lord
assures the "righteous" that all will be well with them. We, many of us in the evangelical community
today, make a mistake when we take up the cause of Israel no matter what the
nation might do. The Lord never had a
sentimental attachment to the nation a la my people right or wrong. It matters deeply to Him that His people
display His righteousness under all circumstances and it isn't wrong to be
critical of the nation at large. The prophets
never made the mistake of treating the nation with kid gloves, they were always
held to the highest possible standard because they alone had the Word of
God. We, the church, are in that same situation
today, we have the truth and the responsibility for that truth and for being
the temple of the Holy Spirit, are great.
We need to own that.
Jesus uses the Word logically to prove that the Christ
cannot be David's son and David's lord all at the same time. In Judaism there was a relationship between a
man and his progeny, the elder was greater than the younger. David cannot call one who comes after him,
from his own line, lord, it would be the other way round. Again, Jesus condemns the leaders whom He
says will be held to a higher standard because even within Judaism, they have been
given more therefore they have greater responsibility. The more you get, the more that is expected
of you. The one person commended in this passage is the widow, who is all in on
God, trusting Him for all things, giving all she had in faith that God would
provide.
The will of God is our sanctification. That isn't often preached any longer
either. There was a time when this was
the focus of preaching, perhaps to an extreme and we forgot about grace but the
answer to that isn't ignoring sanctification and holiness. We have a problem in the church today from
having dispensed so much cheap grace over the past 20 or so years, and that is
we haven't taught people what Paul talked about so often, walking, or living,
in a manner worthy of God. Our walk
doesn't make us worthy but our lives are meant to reflect His presence within
us. We should be measurably and
noticeably different from those around us, both in our private and public
lives. Are you making progress in
sanctification or do you even think much about it? Sanctification is the process of becoming
more and more like Jesus and less and less like the world.
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