You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
I am grateful that my right standing with God does not depend upon me. There was a season of my life where I believed that I needed to earn God’s love. The problem was that because I thought I was pretty good at it, I began requiring others to earn my love. Even worse, I looked at the lives of others through a lens that positioned me to decide if they were pleasing to God or not.
Hear me out: we can look at fellow believers and weigh their lives against the commands of God’s Word. In fact, it’s our responsibility as a people of God who care about each other to help each other see what we are missing in our own lives (Matthew 18:15-17). This is not what I was doing.
I was judging from afar for the purpose of feeling better about myself.
In the end, I was a blind fool. I had a short list of things that I thought I was good at, and I used this list of self-righteousness to judge others. In the process, I conveniently ignored those issues that I was not good at so that I could maintain my false sense of right standing.
The Pharisees were known for being very diligent about certain things (like tithing just about everything).* In this focus, they were missing very important things like justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
I missed some very important things myself, and it grieves me to look back and see the lost opportunities I had to show love to others. I was too busy trying to be good at my short list of things to see what God wanted to do in and through me.
Today, take a step.
Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to allow Him to show you the very important things that you have been missing. Perhaps God wants you to do the good things that come naturally to you, but He wants to challenge you to allow Him to give you the strength for everything else. Maybe today God wants you to allow Him to make you righteous.
Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.
Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a step today… just one is fine.
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*Leon, Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew. Pillar New Testament Commentary (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992), 582–583, and Keener, C. S., Matthew (Vol. 1, Mt 23:23–28).) (InterVarsity Press, 1997).