Some wonderful marriage advice and spiritual teaching from Adrian Rogers and Love Worth Finding (https://www.lwf.org/)
"PRAY OVER THIS
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
(John 13:34-35)
Some wonderful marriage advice and spiritual teaching from Adrian Rogers and Love Worth Finding (https://www.lwf.org/)
"PONDER THIS:
Let me give you some words to remember to help you keep your marriage on track.
The first one is decision.
Make a decision that you’re going to live for God.
God will not force His will on you. Listening to sermons will not change you unless you decide to obey the Word of God.
“Choose . . . this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15).
Give your heart to the Lord.
The next word is dependence.
It is not enough to decide, because you do not have the strength in your own power to live for God.
But God can deliver you if you will depend on Him.
The third word is devotion.
Begin to love the Lord with all your heart and all your soul, and love your wife as yourself.
After this decision and after this dependence, let God pour His love through you.
You are to love each other, not if you feel like it, but because God commands it.
Love for one another comes primarily from Almighty God.
Fourthly, development.
Continue to feed your love daily.
You must nurture your love. It is a growing thing. It’s like a flower that needs to be cultivated. It needs to be protected, and its full beauty can be developed through life.
When have you had to depend on God in order to love someone else?
What does it look like to make an intentional effort to love another person?
PRACTICE THIS:
If you are married, find an intentional way to nurture your marriage.
If you are not married, find an intentional way to love someone else the way Jesus loves.'
Today’s photo a large sunflower being bathed by a brilliantly
shining sun under blue skies comes to us from TammyLyn Clark who shared this
photo along with a bible verse on social media a couple of days ago before the
launch of her new blog (https://tammylynask.blogspot.com/)
which she created to have her own space where she could archive her previous
messages and to share her photography, bible verses, and new messages.2022 proved to be a busy year for TammyLyn as
she will be using 5 W2’s for this year’s taxes as she was moved through a series
of 4 different full time jobs and had a part time job.She will be sharing that testimony soon so I’ll
let you read all about it.
TammyLyn’s story will undoubtedly demonstrate how
God blesses those who are faithful to follow Him although there may be many a
dark valley we may be called to walk through when we decide to “come and see”
all that the Lord has for us.
The Bible verse that she shared with today’s photo
was:
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you,”
declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you
hope and a future.
While there are many a snarky bible
scholar that would point out that this “word” was given to the nation of Israel
as they were facing dark days with the Babylonian Exile and that if we try to apply
this verse to our lives as Christians we are taking it out of context, I would
challenge them by asking:
So God doesn’t have plans for us? God
doesn’t have plans to prosper us, to not harm us, or to give us a hope and a
future?
Sometimes it seems learned Christians
like to be “right” and appear intelligent rather than being encouraging.
As far as I’m concerned the context that
we as Christians should most be concerned with when it comes to the word of God
is “how can God’s word help me to love Him more and be faithful to follow Him.”
So as far as I’m concerned if Jeremiah
29:11 or any verse to the Bible encourages you to seek the Lord, to trust Him,
and to follow Him with the way you live your life, I would say you got “the message”
the Lord was sending you.
As much as we want to know the proper
context of scripture historically, we should also be concerned with applying
God’s word to our lives to empower us.
As Christians, I am sure that God has
plans to prosper us, to not harm us, and to give us a hope and a future. Christ
said as much to His apostles, which they felt encourage to share with us, in
John 14:1-2 (NKJV) where Jesus said: 1 "Let not your heart be
troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father's house are
many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to
prepare a place for you.
That sounds like a plan to not harm us
and to prosper us to me! That sounds like a hope and a future to me!
But just like a salesman with an amazing
offer I would say, that’s not all that God has for us!
The word of God is filled with precious
promises and I am sharing a link on the blog to open bible dot info if you want
to look some up, https://www.openbible.info/topics/gods_promises)
but I would point out that these promises, these gifts from God are for the faithful.So be sure to make Jesus your Lord and Savior
and be faithful to follow Him to redeem those promises, to receive God’s gifts
for you.
My walk as a Christian has not always
been easy. I had some deep valleys to walk through after coming to Christ. I had
to overcome all of my ignorance concerning the gospel and walking in the Spirit,
which is probably the biggest struggle – renewing your mind.But I also had to emerge from the struggles of
broken relationships and addiction too. That was no walk in the park but I received
my victory and freedom because I remained faithful to the simple directive to
surrender and seek the Lord and His will in all things.
I’m still on that path of Christian Discipleship
of course and still have more to learn I am sure but this morning I wanted to
point to how the Lord blesses the faithful and I really set you guys up.
I have shared the story before of how
God literally brought my wife TammyLyn into my life by directing her path to
the Community Freedom Ministry I was doing at my local church back in 2021
because God put it in me to start the mt4christ247 podcast.Through a friend, she heard about the classes
I was teaching, listened to the podcast, and then faithfully answered God’s
call to travel an hour to start attending the classes in person, where we met,
became friends, were engaged, and married on January 1st 2022.I thoroughly believe that my wife, TammyLyn, was the
answer to my prayers for a faithful Christian wife. She was and continues to be
God’s gift to me for my faithfulness.
I was originally going to call today’s
post – “The Box of Love” because on our first anniversary surprised me with a
gift that will continue to bless me and humble me for all of 2023. I’m sharing photos of the “Box of Love” that
TammyLyn gave me. It is decorated with
sweet sentiments about the love of a married couple and inside the box TammyLyn
included a message a day, or so, for each day of year of our marriage during
2022. Unbeknownst to me, each day she
was putting in a Bible verse, a message, or a photo, into an envelope sealing
it with the date and putting it into the box.
So for this year I have an envelope to open each day, that will remind
me of how much my wife loves me and how truly blessed I am by God who has
gifted her to me.
Today’s message from TammyLyn from January
18th 2022 , stated:
“One day someone will walk into your
life and get it right where everyone else got it wrong. One day you won't have
to wait for a call or a text back. One day you won't be the only one giving
your all. One day you'll finally meet someone who wants to help you grow in
life. One day you will finally meet someone who isn't afraid to give love
another chance. One day you will finally meet someone you can trust with
everything. One day you'll have your best friend, your biggest supporter, and
your teammate all wrapped up into one person.
Thank you for being my “one person”. I
am so grateful I found my one day...”
With notes like that, you can see why I
believe that TammyLyn is a gift of God to me!
As much as I am humbled and grateful for
TammyLyn’s unbelievably kind words, I would like to point out that the “ONE
PERSON” who meets all of these criteria is the Lord God Almighty.
I have and undoubtedly will continue to
disappoint my wife from time to time but the Lord is the one who meets all of
those criteria perfectly, all the time, and He truly blesses those who are faithful
to follow Him.
Before Christ my life was a fruitless
search for meaning and satisfaction, but
then my one day came. I heard the message of God’s love that saved my soul and
put me on a course to know the ONE who would be my best friend, biggest
supporter, and teammate all wrapped up in one, the Lord.He will never leave me or forsake me. He has
plans to prosper me, to not harm me, and to give me a hope and a future.
And He knew that it was not good for man
to be alone, and so the Lord brought TammyLyn into my life to give me someone to
love and to walk through life with.
After a meandering path of confusion in
2022, The Lord has blessed TammyLyn with a new job as a special education
teacher, that will likely be her career going forward.She was faithful and God had a plan to prosper
her.
TammyLyn and I are reasonably intelligent
and have some skills and talents but before we both made the decision to faithfully
follow the Lord, I think we would both admit that our lives were somewhat of a
mess.But after we both individually
decided to live by faith, the Lord’s plan to prosper us became clearer and led
to our marriage.
So let me encourage you, God has gifts
for you. God has plans for you. God has the ultimate hope and future for you that
should fill you with joy and peace: eternity with Him.
But let me also encourage and assure
you, that if you are faithful in making the daily decision to seek the Lord, to
know and love Him more, and to follow where He leads, He will give you the
peace that goes beyond all understanding here in the land of the living regardless
of circumstance and you may very well see the goodness of the Lord here on earth
as He works all thing together for good.
So keep walking and talking with God and
see what plans He has for you.
Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible
Promise Book for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
2
Timothy 1:7 (NKJV) 7 For God has not given us a
spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Today’s verse reminds us of the nature of the Spirit that God has
given to all those who place their faith in Christ.
When we walk in the Spirit, we pay attention to what we think and
how we feel. If we are taking every through captive to the obedience of Christ,
we should notice a big difference in terms of what we feel emotionally and what
we think about.
A Christian mindset would be one of contentment, gratitude, Biblically
based reason, and love.
If you notice fear is not on that list.
God’s love which is shown for us through Christ’s sacrifice,
death, and resurrection casts our all fear.
In Christ we have victory over death and sin.So there is nothing to b a afraid of.Death is the worst case scenario for those on
earth but if we have Christ, we have eternal life.Nothing to be afraid of there.
As for sin, if we are afraid of making mistakes – we are covered
by God’s love there too. Through God’s grace and faith in Christ, we are
forgiven for all of our sins, even the ones we haven’t done yet!So we don’t have to fear punishment.
But we also have been given true power over sin, when we abide in
Christ and let Him live through us our hearts will be on living in His peace
and not violating God’s Law and acting out of the character of our new life in
Christ.
God’s love will work in and through us to make all things
new.
And even though the world may say that living for God is “crazy”,
His word assures us that the spirit that leads us to follow the unseen God is
of sound mind.
So do not fear and choose to stop the “insanity” of a secular life
by choosing to live by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit.
___________________________________________
As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I
always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to
assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink’s “The
Sovereignty of God.”
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available on
many websites for less than $20.00.
THE
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
ByARTHUR W. PINK
CHAPTER FOUR
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN SALVATION, continues.
2. The Sovereignty of God the Son in Salvation
For whom did Christ die? It surely does not
need arguing that the Father had an express purpose in giving Him to die, or
that God the Son had a definite design before Him in laying down His
life—“Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world” (Acts
15:18). What then was the purpose of the Father and the design of the Son. We
answer, Christ died for “God’s elect.”
We are not unmindful
of the fact that the limited design
in the death of Christ has been the subject of much controversy—what great
truth revealed in Scripture has not? Nor do we forget that anything which has
to do with the person and work of our blessed Lord requires to be handled with
the utmost reverence, and that a “Thus saith the Lord” must be given in support
of every assertion we make. Our appeal shall be to the Law and to the
Testimony.
For whom did Christ
die? Who were the ones He intended to redeem by His blood-shedding? Surely the
Lord Jesus had some absolute
determination before Him when He went to the Cross. If He had, then it
necessarily follows that the extent
of that purpose was limited, because an absolute
determination of purpose must be effected.
If the absolute determination of Christ included all mankind, then all mankind
would most certainly be saved. To escape this inevitable conclusion many have
affirmed that there was not such absolute determination before Christ, that in
His death a merely conditional provision
of salvation has been made for all mankind. The refutation of this assertion is
found in the promises made by the
Father to His Son before He went to
the Cross, yea, before He became incarnate. The Old Testament Scriptures
represent the Father as promising the Son a certain reward for His sufferings on behalf of sinners. At this stage we
shall confine ourselves to one or two statements recorded in the well known
fifty-third of Isaiah. There we find God saying, “When Thou shalt make His soul
an offering for sin, He shall see His seed,” that “He shall see of the travail
of His soul, and shall be satisfied,” and that God’s righteous Servant “should
justify many” (vv. 10 and 11). But here we would pause and ask, How could it be
certain that Christ should “see His seed,” and “see of the
travail of His soul and be satisfied,”
unless the salvation of certain members of the human race had been Divinely decreed, and therefore was
sure? How could it be certain that
Christ should “justify many,” if no effectual provision was made that any should receive Him as their Lord and
Saviour? On the other hand, to insist that the Lord Jesus did expressly purpose the salvation of all mankind is to charge Him with that which no intelligent being
should be guilty of, namely, to design
that which by virtue of His omniscience He knew
would never come to pass. Hence, the only alternative left us is that, so
far as the pre-determined purpose of His death is concerned Christ died for the
elect only. Summing up in a sentence, which we trust will be intelligible to
every reader, we would say, Christ died not merely to make possible the salvation of all mankind, but to make certain the salvation of all that
the Father had given to Him. Christ died not simply to render sins pardonable,
but “to put away sin by the sacrifice
of Himself” (Heb. 9:26). As to whose
“sin” (i.e., guilt, as in 1 John 1:7, etc.) has
been “put away,” Scripture leaves us in no doubt—it was that of the elect,
the “world” (John 1:29) of God’s people!
(1) The limited design in the Atonement follows,
necessarily, from the eternal choice of the Father of certain ones unto
salvation. The Scriptures inform us that before the Lord became incarnate He
said, “Lo, I come, to do Thy will O
God” (Heb. 10:7), and after He had become incarnate He declared, “For I came
down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me”
(John 6:38). If then God had from the beginning chosen certain ones to
salvation, then, because the will of Christ was in perfect accord with the will
of the Father, He would not seek to enlarge
upon His election. What we have just said is not merely a plausible deduction
of our own, but is in strict harmony with the express teaching of the Word.
Again and again our Lord referred to those whom the Father had “given” Him, and
concerning whom He was particularly exercised. Said He, “All that the Father
giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast
out.… And this is the Father’s will which hath sent Me, that of all which He
hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last
day” (John 6:37, 39). And again, “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up His
eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy
Son also may glorify Thee; As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He
should give eternal life to as many as
Thou hast given Him.… I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world: Thine they
were, and Thou gavest them Me; and they have kept Thy Word.… I pray for them: I
pray not for the world, but for them
which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine.… Father, I will that they
also, whom Thou hast given Me, be
with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me:
for Thou lovest Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:1, 2, 6, 9,
24). Before the foundation of the world the Father predestinated a people to be
conformed to the image of His Son, and the death and resurrection of the Lord
Jesus was in order to the carrying out of the Divine purpose.[1]
“The views, opinions, and commentary of this
publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to
reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries,
or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication,
and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the
author may represent.”
Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship
Today’s photo of a circular ripple on Hiawassee Lake
from the vantage point of the Hanging Dog Recreational Area in Murphy North
Carolina comes to us from a friend who posted this scene on social media back
on October 12th with the following poem:
“Sunlight starts the day anew
A lifetime I have searched for you
Eyes like the ocean
Reflect sky blue
Hair like the sun
With a golden hue
I've searched in the desert
I've searched by the sea
I came to the mountains
Where you might be
Now I sit by the water
With a mountain view
Watching ripples on the water
Fade away like you
Waterfalls turn into streams
And day turns into night
I’ll only see you in my dreams
Where I will hold you tight.”
Well it's Friday again, Thank God,and while our friend’s poem touches the heart
as it portrays the reality that life can sometimes be the desperate but
fruitless search for loves lost, but fondly remembered, I am thanking the Lord
for showing me His love and for bringing me the love of my who just happens to
have “Hair like the sun.” because I can well remember several times in my life
that I was obsessed over gaining the love of someone I desired or was lamenting
over the loves I had lost.
Before I was shown the truth of the gospel of Jesus
Christ, I thought that was the meaning of life: finding your “soul mate”.With that romantic world view, the world was
a cold and lonely, albeit beautiful, place. But all the splendor of the world
or the good things of life, were rendered meaningless without “THE ONE” who was
somewhere out there with whom only a man could enjoy the other fruits of life
with.
But after a many broken relationships where I had hoped
to find fulfillment, and in the midst of a troubled marriage where I couldn’t seem
to make a “happy life” or a “happy wife” no matter how much I tried to appease
and surrender to another’s will, the Lord revealed to me the truth about the
meaning of life and death by opening my eyes to the BIG PICTURE that included
the creation of the universe, , the God who authored it, the history and
purpose of man, what went wrong, and how we can be made right because of Jesus Christ!
Everything I had tried to find meaning or
satisfaction had failed me and in a moment of divine grace and clarity, I saw
that everything that I had heard about Jesus Christ was true but I also saw the
truth that being right with God wasn’t about me “doing everything right” it was
about simply putting our faith in Jesus and surrendering to His Lordship and I
discovered that it wasn’t about God’s desire to dominate or control us. Life
was about the Creator trying to save His creation and it was motivated by
love.
God made us in His image and without Him, we suffer
a feeling of inadequacy, that something is missing.We each instinctively know this but the
world, the flesh, and the devil come in and offer us alternatives that they
promise will “complete us”.One of those
lies is of “The ONE” – the myth that there is one perfect person out there that
will complete you and make you happy.
But that myth is short sighted.Even if there is someone out there that is
perfectly compatible with you who can support and love you all the days of your
life, they don’t answer the question of death.To be focused on the search of “THE ONE” is to be blinded of the reality
of your spiritual separation from God.
Other myths out their do the same thing: The myths
that life is:
·“ALL ABOUT FAMILY” or
·“Having ENOUGH MONEY” or
·“BEING HAPPY” or
·“BEING TRUE TO YOURSELF” or
·“BEING THE BOSS OF MY LIFE” or
·“BEING SMART” or
·“BEING HEALTHY” or
·“BEING SUCCESSFUL” or
·“BEING LOVED”
Equally all fail
us.They all ignore the LORD, as if He
was somehow not important? I mean how could we be so deceived to think that the
One who gave us life is just some minor portion of our lives that can be given
homage once a week or a couple of times a year? How can we think we can find
the “meaning”, purpose, or a good strategy for life if we haven’t considered
the One who made us?
But I know we can, because
most of my life that’s what I did. My life philosophy was a composite of all
the above myths and even though I was able to support myself financially and
have a family and some fun in life if I am honest there was always that sense
of absurdity or lack of satisfaction when I looked at my life and thought: “This
is IT?”
When those myths
are your focus, the spiritual issues are either a sidebar to your life, that we
will just have to hope for the best, or we deny the spiritual altogether and
say “Yeah, this is it!” as in we blink out of existence, thus we better
selfishly live it up!
But God wants us to
know that this world and our ideas of it are not “IT”.The idea of “The ONE” – or a soul mate is not
IT.Or at least not the way we thought
it was.
Because there is
ONE who can fulfill us. One that can make us right. And that ONE is Jesus
Christ and God sent Him to tell us the truth and to pay for our sins that separate
us from God.Christ answers all the
questions of meaning and purpose.
We are made in the image of God. Creation was
broken by man’s sin and rebellion. SO God, out of His love for us sent Jesus to
reconcile us to Him and it is only through Him that we can find peace.
Just like we
thought that the world was a pretty cold and lonely place that lacked the
ability without our perfect = “soul mate” -We discover that the reason why we have never been satisfied is because
that only One that can complete us is Christ alone!
And the wonderful
news is that when we put our faith in Jesus, we can truly live.Through Christ we overcome death and sin, and
have the power to enjoy our lives in his acceptance, security, and significance.
In Christ we “become
somebody”, we are adopted as royal ambassadors to the kingdom of God. We
receive the knowledge of the wisdom of how to live and have peace with
God.
In Christ we need
not fear, for God is with us and for us, forever.
In Christ we are
loved by God and have the mission to live out His purpose for us.
Before Christ, I
considered my self to be a Jack Kerouac searcher for meaning, good times, and
love as I tried to make sense of the world with just the things of the world. I
would wax on philosophically and poetically about all the wisdom I had gathered
from my wild experiences of life.But although
I considered myself somewhat Kerouacian, I didn’t know JACK!
In all my
wanderings I dismissed the Bible, forsook the fellowship of the saints, and it
was only through the grace of God, and a gospel radio message, that the Lord
led me to the truth.
So, don’t lament
about the past, the Christian disciple’s orientation is to be forward looking
and to keep our eyes on Christ, to follow Him with the way we live our lives,
to meditate on the word of God, and to enjoy His presence in prayer and as we
walk through this world.
So keep walking and
talking with God, IT turns out that JESUS is THE ONE we should have been
looking for all along. And when we know His love, we can discover the new life
He has for us and if the Lord wills it He will lead us into relationships with
others, maybe even a spouse, that we can share our lives with, lives that are
defined by the fruit of the Spirit because no matter what we do, our
relationship with God will be the center of our existence and will provide us
with the meaning, purpose, and love that we were always searching for.
Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible
Promise Book for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
Psalm 51:17 (NLT2) 17 The sacrifice you desire
is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart,
O God.
Today’s Bible versesdescribes our condition when we give up those
myths and lies of the world and finally repent and surrender to the Lord.
The spirit of broken man is the spirit of rebellion and self-sufficiency.
We try to live independently from God and forge our own destinies, as if we
could control anything in an ultimate sense.Or we will try to please God with “good works” thinking if we just
perform the right “sacrifice”, God will accept us.
But today’s verse indicates the God desires us to submit to Him
and repent. Our surrender to the Lordship of Christ not our sacrifice is the
only thing that God wants or will accept.
So remember what God desires and give Him wants by living a life
that is repentant and surrendered to His will.
___________________________________________
As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I
always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to
assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s
“Discipleship”, also known as “The Cost of Discipleship”
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available on
many websites for less than $20.00.
Chapter Six
The
Sermon on the Mount
Matthew
5
On
the “Extraordinary”
of Christian Life
The Righteousness of Christ continues
Jesus, the Son of
God, who alone stands in full communion with God, renews the validity of the
law by coming to fulfill the law of the Old Covenant. Because he was the only
One who did that, he alone could truly teach the law and how it is fulfilled.
The disciples would know and understand this when he told it to them, because
they knew who he was. The Jews could not understand it as long as they did not
believe him. That was why they had to reject his teaching of the law as
blasphemy against God or, rather, against God’s law. Thus, for the sake of
God’s true law, Jesus had to suffer at the hands of the advocates of the false
law. Jesus died on the cross as a blasphemer, as a transgressor of the law,
because he put into force the true law against the misunderstood, false law.
The fulfillment of
the law, about which Jesus speaks, could therefore come about only through his
being nailed to the cross as a sinner. He himself, as the crucified one, is the
perfect fulfillment of the law.
This means that Jesus
Christ and only he fulfills the law, because he alone lives in perfect
communion with God. He himself steps between his disciples and the law, but the
law does not come between him and his disciples. The disciples’ path to the law
leads through the cross of Christ. Because Jesus points the disciples to the
law, which he alone fulfills, he thus binds them anew to himself. He had to
reject lawless allegiance apart from God’s law, because this would be
enthusiasm, and, therefore, would mean a disrupture of all bonds instead of
being bound to him. The disciples’ anxiety, however, that being bound to the
law might separate them from Jesus was dispelled. Such anxiety could only arise
from misunderstanding the law, which did, in fact, cut the Jews off from God.
Instead of this, it became clear that true adherence to Jesus is granted only
together with adherence to God’s law.
But if Jesus stands
between his disciples and the law, it is not to release them from fulfilling
the law. Instead, it is to enforce his demand that the law be fulfilled. The
disciples’ adherence to him requires the same obedience of them. Also,
fulfilling the law to the iota does not cancel that iota for the disciples from
then on. It is fulfilled; that is all. But that fulfillment is precisely what
really makes the law valid, so that now anyone who does and teaches these
commandments will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. “Do and teach”—it would be possible to
think of a teaching of the law which dispenses with doing it by explaining that
the purpose of the law would be merely to let us know that its fulfillment is
impossible. Such a teaching cannot claim to be based on Jesus. The law demands
to be done, just as surely as he himself did it. Those who in discipleship
follow Jesus, who fulfilled the law, do and teach the law in their following.
Only those who do the law can remain in the community of Jesus.
It is not the law
which distinguishes the disciples from the Jews. Instead, it is ‘better
righteousness’. The righteousness of the disciples “towers over” the scribes.
It surpasses them; it is something extraordinary and distinctive. This is the
first time that the concept of περισσεύειν appears, which will
assume so much importance in verse 47. We must ask, what did the righteousness
of the Pharisees consist of? What does the righteousness of the disciples
consist of? The Pharisees certainly never succumbed to the antiscriptural
fallacy of believing that the law should be taught, but not done. The Pharisees
intended to be doers of the law. Their righteousness consisted of their
immediate, literal obedience to what was commanded in the law. Their
righteousness was their action. The goal of their righteousness was complete
conformity of their action to what was commanded in the law. Nonetheless, a
remnant always remained, which had to be covered by forgiveness. Their
righteousness always remained incomplete. The righteousness of the disciples
could also consist solely of their doing the law. No one who did not keep the
law could be called righteous. But the disciples’ action surpasses that of the
Pharisees in that it really is perfect righteousness, as opposed to the
imperfect righteousness of the Pharisees. How can this be? The superiority of
the disciples’ righteousness is that Jesus stands between them and the law—he,
who has completely fulfilled the law, and in whose community they live. Instead
of a law not yet fulfilled, the disciples confronted a law which had already
been fulfilled. Before they even began to obey the law, it was already
fulfilled; its demands were already satisfied. The righteousness required by
the law is already there; it is the righteousness of Jesus, who went to the
cross for the sake of the law. But because that righteousness is not only a
good deed to be performed, but complete, true, and personal communion with God,
Jesus not only has righteousness, he is righteousness personified. He is the
disciples’ righteousness. In calling his disciples, Jesus granted them
participation in himself; he gave them community with him; he let them
participate in his own righteousness; he granted them his own righteousness.
The disciples’ righteousness is the righteousness of Christ. Jesus begins his
talk about ‘better righteousness’ by referring to his fulfillment of the law in
order to make this point. The righteousness of Christ is really also the
disciples’ righteousness. In a strict sense, it remains righteousness freely
granted, granted through the call to discipleship. It is that righteousness
which consists precisely in following him. It is that righteousness which
received the promise of the kingdom of heaven in the Beatitudes. The disciples’
righteousness is righteousness under the cross. It is the righteousness of the
poor, the mournful, the hungry, the meek, the peacemakers, and the
persecuted—for the sake of the call of Jesus. It is the visible righteousness
of those who in following him become the light of the world and the city on a
hill—for the sake of the call of Jesus. The disciples’ righteousness is
“better” than that of the Pharisees in that it rests solely on the call into
the community of Jesus, who alone has fulfilled the law. The disciples’
righteousness really is righteousness, because they themselves now truly do the
will of God and fulfill the law. The righteousness of Christ should not just be
taught, but done. Otherwise, it is no
better than the law which is merely taught, but not obeyed. Everything which
will be said next should be understood in light of this doing of the
righteousness of Christ by the disciples. In a word, this means to follow him.
It is genuine, simple obedience in faith in the righteousness of Christ. The
righteousness of Christ is the new law, the law of Christ.[1]
Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship,
ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 117–120.
