March 28
Deut 9:1-10:22 | PS 69:19-36 | Prov 12:2-3 | Luke 8:4-21
There are warnings throughout Scripture that we must be careful how we act around those outside of faith (Colossians 4:5-6), for they are watching to see if our faith is real or if we are hypocrites. But this same standard also holds within the faith. So often we extend grace, love, and mercy to those outside the faith, while within the confines of fellow believers this is not the case. Unfortunately, grace is often replaced with a legalistic mentality, where those who place themselves in the position to judge tend to rank sins, of course placing those sins that they don't personally struggle with at the top of the list to be condemned. I have seen this recently with someone that I know well (not in CCOB), it was shocking to witness and the lack of horizontal grace was staggering. In Isaiah 5, the prophet goes strongly against the people issuing 7 woes in the process (Isaiah 5:8,11,18,20-22), for example in 5:21, "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, And prudent in their own sight." But immediately after we come to Isaiah 6, rather than seeing himself alongside the people, the prophet sees himself alongside God, 6:1, "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple." As a result of this we see a tremendous difference in Isaiah as he redirects the woes towards himself in 6:5, "So I said: "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts."
As Moses retells the history of their 40 year journey, we read in Deuteronomy 10:12-13, "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good?" What every generation has shown us from Adam and Eve in the garden to the present time, is we are incapable of following Him purely. We may want to, but we keep getting in the way of ourselves. It states over and over to love God with all of our heart. Do we? When Jesus was asked by one of the teachers of the law what the greatest commandment was, we read in Matthew 22:37-40, His response, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and the greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and His prophets." Jesus took 613 laws, brought it down to only two, and if we are completely honest, we all fail both of those two miserably. I'm not saying that we don't love God or our neighbors, but with all of our heart and like we love ourselves? The realization of this should strip every ounce of legalistic and pharisaical tendency from us, but often it does not. Elevating those sins we feel we have under control to a more severe level we often lack the same grace which has been so richly extended to us, by the only perfect One. This desire of God is not just a New Testament concept as we read in Micah 6:8, "He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?"
When I first read through the Bible the first few times, I remember shaking my head at the stubbornness and rebellious nature of God's people. As I would read verses like, Deuteronomy 10:16, "Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.", I would think, when are they going to get with the program? When I stopped and started comparing myself to God rather than others, I realized rather than sitting in judgment, their behavior was like a mirror reflecting myself and everyone else around me. Rather than elevating myself in judgment of anyone, it drops me to my knees as I realize my own weaknesses. Too often those in the church walk around with their pious, somber, super-spiritual demeanor. This must stop. We who are in God's Word, more than anyone else, should know how far we stand from His perfect example. We should be the most winsome, merciful, gracious, and loving people in the world as we reflect on just how much He has forgiven us and continues to forgive us for. God's Word is His Word, and His standards are His standards, and these must never be manipulated or altered. But when others and ourselves fail and fall, and we all will, there is His grace and mercy to pick us back up, and this must flow from us, His children, if we are to emulate the loving example He so unselfishly exemplified.
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: