- May 10, 2023
- 3 min read
“Speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has not shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:12-13 CSB)
People are not easy to love because they want to be enthroned for all the wrong reasons. People want to be enthroned to give out punishment rather than to give freedom and mercy. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us about what has become the Golden Rule, “Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him. Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:7-12 CSB). If even in my unrighteousness I can choose goodness, then how much more good is God that is always righteous? I cannot be an example of God’s righteousness by not showing His righteousness. And that means a lot of forgiving things because I have been forgiven for so much. And if God, the one who is actually enthroned, gives me forgiveness for everything, then shouldn’t I, as an Ambassador of His Kingdom, give that forgiveness as well?
Jesus concludes His sermon by warning us all about hearing and not acting on His Word, “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash” (Matthew 7:24-27 CSB). And that is my choice. Am I going to be wise or foolish? Am I going to trust in Him or myself? Am I going to follow His Way or my understanding? Am I going to enthrone Him or myself?
“Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7 CSB).
Sometimes we forget the fifth statement by Jesus in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. And sometimes we just want to be the judge of all the world. We want to judge everyone that doesn’t listen to God and He will handle that. BUT more often we want to judge everyone that doesn’t listen to us. We want to judge people that do not agree with us. We want to judge people that do not act like us. We want to judge people that do not do what we want. We want to judge out of our hurt, our bitterness, our anger, our mourning, our despair . . .
I will just end with that and leave the question about whether our lives are showing us hearers or doers . . . “But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was. But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who works — this person will be blessed in what he does. If anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless and he deceives himself. Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:22-27 CSB).
Grace and Shalom to your home.
I love you. I forgive you. Have a blessed and abundant day!