Romans Chapter 10
Dear brothers and sisters, I long with all my heart and pray to God for the Jews to come to faith in Jesus. I have to give them credit, they have a zeal for God, but they are unenlightened. Since they are ignorant of God's righteousness and are trying to establish their own, they have not submitted themselves to receive the truth about the righteousness of God. This good news of Christ puts a final end to people ever thinking that they have to earn God's righteousness by their efforts.
Long ago Moses described the dynamics of the kind of righteousness that is earned, "The person who tries to earn righteousness must be totally consistent." But the righteousness based on believing God has a different dynamic according to the scripture, "You don't need to ascend into heaven." (Neither can you make the Messiah come down from heaven.) "You don't need to descend into the grave." (Neither can you raise Messiah from the dead.) Only God could do such things. But what does it say? "God's salvation which we preach to you is within your reach- it's very near. It's in your mouth and in your heart." He has already accomplished it for you, just believe it!
Comments:
Self-justification is, and has always been, a powerful force in human nature...and it shows itself in many forms. It is rooted in our attempts to avoid the thoughts, emotions and consequences of both guilt and shame. These too are powerful forces in human life...and our attempts to handle them impel us to all sorts of strange gyrations.
In the insightful book by the Arbinger Institute, The Anatomy of Peace, the team of authors identify four "boxes" in which we tend to place ourselves rather than squarely facing our weaknesses or failings...the "I'm-Better-Than" box; the "I'm-Worse-Than" (ironic) box; the "I-Deserve" box and the "I-Must-Be-Seen-As" box. Climbing into (or just living within) these boxes for fear of having our failures exposed, is all about us saving our sense of pride by erecting a defensive shell to wrongly protect our fragile egos. (I personally prefer a box fort with two connecting rooms!) Oh the wars...personal ones all the way to international ones...that have been waged throughout history because of these forces.
The gospel of Jesus provides us with a simple way off of this dizzying merry-go-round of living a life of self-justification that saps so much of our energy. Here is the reality. We aren't intrinsically better or worse than anyone. We don't actually "deserve" anything except..and I say this with tears in my heart...God's judgment. And finally, only God sees us for who we really are...and that's what truly matters...because we can't ultimately control how other people may perceive us and how they do won't matter in the end.
The horrific "price" we pay for this...and I say this with my tongue clearly in my cheek...is to humble ourselves like children, agree with God and simply trust in Jesus Christ--who he is and what he has done. The miracle of God's love and peace and joy then comes upon us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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