Devotional Series: Rock: A Life that Can Stand Up to Anything Started: 9/2/2013 Devotional for Monday, September 16, 2013 Out-driving the Long-drivers For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20) You don’t need to be a professional golfer to make some pretty good money with a golf club. Long-drive contests are exactly what they claim to be: a competition to see who can simply drive the ball the farthest. Winning drives span well over 300 yards. Prize money easily gets to the tens of thousands, with the championship title bringing in a $150,000 pay-off. Forget about irons and putters and pitching wedges. All you need is an explosive swing and good driver. Some of you spend a fair amount of time swinging a golf club. You might relish a contest such as this – but for the rest of us, imagine this scenario. Imagine a scene in which your spiritual well-being depends on being able to out-drive the best drivers. Or imagine being told you needed to clear a high-bar set at 10 feet. The current world record is 8.03 feet. It sounds ridiculous, but suppose for a moment that the health of your soul in this life and the security of your soul in the life to come depended upon exceeding the best of the best. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus made a statement that probably sounded just as ridiculous to those who were listening to him. Having said that the doors of God’s Kingdom are open to the least likely and the least impressive Jesus goes on to say that “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” What could Jesus have possibly meant by this? The scribes and the Pharisees were the religious long-drivers of Jesus’s day. They were prone to pious excesses, but they loved the law of God and cared deeply about their Jewish identity. They were careful, even meticulous, in keeping God’s law. Having just proclaimed that the Kingdom belonged to spiritual zeros, how can he now raise the bar so high? How can weekend hack out drive the long-drivers? Dallas Willard explains that the scribes and Pharisees focused on the actions that the law required and the manner in which they were to be done, but their heart and character, the inner dimension of who their personality, often remained at odds with what God wanted. Willard maintains that to truly keep the law means “becoming the kind of people from whom the deeds of the law naturally flow” (Divine Conspiracy, 142-43). Jesus isn’t simply looking for people to be better behaved. He’s not demanding a longer-drive. Jesus is after a heart that belongs to God and delights to do what God asks. Next Steps: Over the next two weeks we’ll be looking at the familiar sins of lust and anger. Read Matthew 5:17-30. What does a ‘greater righteousness’ look like in these areas of life? Prayer: O God, you have called us to be righteous – not simply well behaved and above reproach in our conduct. What you seek comes from deep within and only become a part of our living by your grace. Grant it, we pray, and work on our hearts to make them like yours, we ask in Jesus’s name. Amen. Mark H. Crumpler Pastor for Teaching and Spiritual Formation markthis.blogspot
Posted on: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 09:55:27 +0000
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