Matthew 5:20 IBS

Friday October 3^rd, 2014

Matthew 5:20 “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”

            Praise the Lord my sins are washed away by the blood of the Lamb. Something that keeps coming to mind is the Perspectives article we did with Pastor Steve yesterday. It talks about the Hindus and how they act and worship and whatnot. They do things to the extreme that we need to see as an example. Am I willing to give my life for my Lord and Savior for the truth as those in the cults do for something that is a lie? Man, they are full out and dedicated. Does that mean I go killing others? NO, of course not! But it does mean that I need to make sacrifices and put Jesus as the head of everything. I need to do works according to His will and glorify Him through it all. People need to see that I am a fan of Jesus and even more so than that. That Jesus is my life. Instead of people seeing that sure I love the color purple or I really like London, they need to see hey, that girl really is on fire for Jesus. That girl gets it and I want what she has. My actions should point directly to Him and through that others should hopefully come to know Him. I kind of talked about that yesterday. I am a Christ follower, and with that I should be reflecting Christ.

            Now, thank goodness that there is no competition to get saved, but I should desire to have higher righteousness than the scribes and Pharisees. I should desire to strive and have perfection. Of course that will never be the case and that isn’t the point of doing the works. I basically just want to become low and have a Christ-like mindset. Make sure my ways are that which reflect Jesus and His love for others.

            Application: I keep coming to the same conclusion, but I know that’s not just some coincidence, it’s God. I need to become not less, not high, but low, like Jesus and that is a daily task. The only way to accomplish that is to be walking in the Spirit. I will write “ask” on my hand to remember to ask God for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit all throughout the day.