... hold fast what is good. (ESV)
... cleave to that which is good (ASV)
... hold tight to everything that is good (CEV)
Cling to that which is good. (EMTV)
Now we are not saved by our good works. However, this is due to the lack of such good works in our life and not because God does not take pleasure in our doing good. We have been saved by God's grace alone by the death of Messiah Jesus for us. Now that we have been saved, God has ordained us to live a life full of good works (Eph 2:8-10). We do good deeds not be be saved but because we are saved.
The Greek word here for "hold fast" is killao which is literally "glue". Strive to forever attach yourself to the good. To have the good stick to you is a literal image. We are to glue ourselves to the good or agathos. We are to become fully attached to virtue, health, usefulness, excellence, honor and that which brings true joyfulness into the world.
We are to run from in horror the moral depravity that causes pain and death and run passionately after moral good which causes true joy and brings life. We are to desire to become so attached to good that it would be like being "super glued" to something. We are to be unable to get rid of it without a lot of pain and trouble. To do good is to be and act like Messiah Jesus. It is to love God first and then have compassion on people. It is to live a sane, stable, and spiritual life consistently.
How can we get "glued to good"? Here are some ideas.
1. Wear goodness - This would mean first of all to dress in a modest way. It would mean for married people to keep their wedding bands on. It would mean to have something that reminds you of your relationship with Christ. Maybe a cross around your neck or a "big idea" card in your wallet. What can I do that will "glue goodness" to my appearance, dress, and routine of getting ready for daily life.
2. Read and talk about goodness to yourself. Watch your self talk and make sure that it is moving you in the direction of virtue and not vice. Talk to yourself about the goodness of God in dying for your sins in the person of Messiah Jesus. Remind yourself of the good character of God. Read the Bible and other devotional books which call upon you to seek goodness and run from evil.
3. Have your entertainment encourage being "glued to goodness" and not a temptation to vice. Entertainment has a lot to do with what we become "glued to" in our emotions and actions. Seek to find fun ways to seek a sane, stable, and healthy life. Some entertainment encourages our dark side while some fun activities help us appreciate living well. Is the music in your life encouraging virtue or vice?
4. Seek out relationships with people who encourage you being good. Bad company ruins good morals. We need people who will be "rubbing us the right way" and being cheer leaders for right behavior. This is one of the aspects of a small group since it can hold us accountable to what we know to be "good."
5. Make every meal a time to ask God to help you be filled with the Holy Spirit and seek first the Kingdom of God. By turning every meal into a reminder of God's love for us and our need to love Him, then this allows us to become "glued to goodness".
6. Make up self talk that summarizes all the benefits of doing good. Read this self talk part of your meal time and morning devotions. Sell yourself on the wisdom of doing what is morally noble over compromising with your darker desires. Fall in love with goodness.
7. Talk about good things with other people. Strive to take the "high moral ground" in conversations. Confess desire to do evil as wrong. Do not play with bad attitudes by expressing approval of wrong doing. Be a person who will counsel good behavior and wise living even when you struggle to do it.
8. Be alert to the opportunity to do good. Goodness will remain very abstract until we just "do it". By visiting the lonely, feeding the sick, encouraging the discouraged, giving to the poor, worshiping God with passion, sharing the gospel with the lost, giving wise counsel to the confused, and praying for those in need we become "glued to goodness" because it becomes a lifestyle.
9. Bathe yourself in reminders to be and do good. Have signs, posters, art, and rituals which remind you that because of Christ's goodness to you that now you desire to be good. Put reminders to do good and be good into your daily calender.
10. Become sensitive to the "clues" that you are beginning to backslide. Keep a radical moral inventory of your life up to date. Most of us become "unglued" over a long period of time. Our attachment to God's will for our lives is something lost by erosion rather than a radical decision to do evil. We simply stop reinforcing our commitment to goodness and then one day we notice we are in a very bad place spiritually.
Finally one more danger. Ignore anyone who says you are being too "religious" or taking seeking goodness to extremes. None of us on judgment day will be sad because we gained some virtue but many of us will regret the vices that still dominated our lives.
May God help me become glued to goodness this day.
Showing posts with label righteousness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label righteousness. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Matthew 15:10-20 - What messes up my life?
Devotions
8/23/2008
Reading: NLT Matthew 15:10 Then Jesus called to the crowds and said, "Listen to what I say and try to understand. 11 You are not defiled by what you eat; you are defiled by what you say and do. " 12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, "Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?" 13 Jesus replied, "Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be rooted up, 14 so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch." 15 Then Peter asked Jesus, "Explain what you meant when you said people aren't defiled by what they eat." 16 "Don't you understand?" Jesus asked him. 17 "Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes out of the body. 18 But evil words come from an evil heart and defile the person who says them. 19 For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all other sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. 20 These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands could never defile you and make you unacceptable to God!"
Meditation
1. Literal – This section has two features of Jesus’ teaching ministry that stand out most when one reads the New Testament. First, Jesus’ teaching in conflict and offends the Pharisees and Jesus uses parables to get his point across. The first teaching here seems very straight forward. We become “unclean” or defiled not by breaking the washing rituals and dietary code of Israel but by our sinful actions. Now this was teaching contradicted the idea that it was important to follow all the outward dietary laws and rituals to be righteous.
The entire section of Matthew 15:1-28 is concerned with ritual purity -- who is clean/unclean and what makes them that way? There is a connection from beginning to end with the word artos = "bread". Unfortunately, this Greek word is usually left untranslated in v. 2b: "For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread." It is a key image in Jesus' conversation with the Canaanite woman, v. 26 and in the feeding stories before and after our text: 14:17, 19; 15:33, 34, 36. (Note also its use in 16:5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12). The chapter begins because the disciples have not followed the ritual cleansing riturals of the Pharisees when eating bread, a women is humble enough to ask for the crumbs of bread that fall of the table filled with Messianic blessing for the Jews, and the blessing of the kingdom is given by the multiplication of bread given like Manna from heaven.
Pharisees have come to Jesus asking why his disciples break the oral law, which they believe to be God-given and to have equal status with Mosaic Law: why do they not wash before eating? He has pointed out to them that at times they give priority to the oral law over the biblical Law. The Pharisees teach rules of human, rather than divine, origin.
Now (v. 10) he tells the crowd a “parable” (v. 15), a saying with a hidden meaning. He sees moral behaviour (“out of the mouth”, v. 11) as important, not food laws (“into the mouth”). When the disciples point out that he has offended the Pharisees (v. 12) by his reply to their question, he is blunt: do not follow them; being “blind” (v. 14), they and their followers will be judged adversely (“pit”). When Peter asks for an explanation, Jesus addresses all the disciples (“you”, v. 16, is plural). What is eaten, Jesus says, even though ritually clean, ends up unclean (“sewer”, v. 17), so food laws are unimportant (for their purpose was to keep Israel pure from idols and separate from the nations not to become viewed as magical). The “mouth” (v. 18) was seen as the channel by which the “heart”, the very being, expressed itself. Immoral behavior (“evil intentions ...”, v. 19) does alienate one from God (“defile”, v. 20) but not breaking laws of human origin or misunderstandings of God’s own Word.
Christocentric: We are confronted here with the reality of Jesus being the Christ. He is the authoritative prophet, priest, and king from God. His word is greater than the tradition of the rabbis of Israel. His interpretation of the dietary laws is enough to change the practice of God’s people. One must see Him as the one who has sight while orthodox Judaism is blind. We must recognize the strong demand here to bow the knee to Jesus as the ultimate authority over life and faith.
Moral: Don’t sweat the superficial and small things. Don’t focus life on things that end up in the sewer or the trash. Do be concerned about your words and deeds. Do worry about what your words and deeds reveal about the condition of your heart. Don’t view yourself as righteous and good because you keep a few “outward” Christian things. Instead recognize the depth of your sin within your heart and the need for forgiveness. Do not be a blind person leading another blind person. If you are blind then admit it and lead no one. Put first things first. Above all else ask God to give you a pure heart.
Eternal: The greatest joy of heaven will be that the controversies will be over, the questions will be all answered, and most important of all our hearts will be pure of all sin. The greatest joy of heaven will be that we are really morally clean, washed pure from all sin, and no longer defiled. We will be cured of our moral cancer and actually experience in our entire being love for God and love for others. We will become an incarnation of love, purity, and holiness. This will be the fulfillment of our greatest potential as human being. Lord, come quickly that we may be pure!
Prayer: Lord, continue to purify my heart. Keep me from superficial self justification of my actions. Lord, work in my heart to give me a greater and greater love for righteousness. Thank you for cleansing me of my sin by your sacrifice on the cross.
Contemplation: Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see me
Action: Make a list of every impure thought, word, and deed today. Seek to become sensitive to wrong intentions, wrong words, and wrong actions. At the end of the day confess these very specific things knowing that the blood of Christ washes away all my defilement. Then be really thankful for Christ’s death for my sins.
8/23/2008
Reading: NLT Matthew 15:10 Then Jesus called to the crowds and said, "Listen to what I say and try to understand. 11 You are not defiled by what you eat; you are defiled by what you say and do. " 12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, "Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?" 13 Jesus replied, "Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be rooted up, 14 so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch." 15 Then Peter asked Jesus, "Explain what you meant when you said people aren't defiled by what they eat." 16 "Don't you understand?" Jesus asked him. 17 "Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes out of the body. 18 But evil words come from an evil heart and defile the person who says them. 19 For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all other sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. 20 These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands could never defile you and make you unacceptable to God!"
Meditation
1. Literal – This section has two features of Jesus’ teaching ministry that stand out most when one reads the New Testament. First, Jesus’ teaching in conflict and offends the Pharisees and Jesus uses parables to get his point across. The first teaching here seems very straight forward. We become “unclean” or defiled not by breaking the washing rituals and dietary code of Israel but by our sinful actions. Now this was teaching contradicted the idea that it was important to follow all the outward dietary laws and rituals to be righteous.
The entire section of Matthew 15:1-28 is concerned with ritual purity -- who is clean/unclean and what makes them that way? There is a connection from beginning to end with the word artos = "bread". Unfortunately, this Greek word is usually left untranslated in v. 2b: "For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread." It is a key image in Jesus' conversation with the Canaanite woman, v. 26 and in the feeding stories before and after our text: 14:17, 19; 15:33, 34, 36. (Note also its use in 16:5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12). The chapter begins because the disciples have not followed the ritual cleansing riturals of the Pharisees when eating bread, a women is humble enough to ask for the crumbs of bread that fall of the table filled with Messianic blessing for the Jews, and the blessing of the kingdom is given by the multiplication of bread given like Manna from heaven.
Pharisees have come to Jesus asking why his disciples break the oral law, which they believe to be God-given and to have equal status with Mosaic Law: why do they not wash before eating? He has pointed out to them that at times they give priority to the oral law over the biblical Law. The Pharisees teach rules of human, rather than divine, origin.
Now (v. 10) he tells the crowd a “parable” (v. 15), a saying with a hidden meaning. He sees moral behaviour (“out of the mouth”, v. 11) as important, not food laws (“into the mouth”). When the disciples point out that he has offended the Pharisees (v. 12) by his reply to their question, he is blunt: do not follow them; being “blind” (v. 14), they and their followers will be judged adversely (“pit”). When Peter asks for an explanation, Jesus addresses all the disciples (“you”, v. 16, is plural). What is eaten, Jesus says, even though ritually clean, ends up unclean (“sewer”, v. 17), so food laws are unimportant (for their purpose was to keep Israel pure from idols and separate from the nations not to become viewed as magical). The “mouth” (v. 18) was seen as the channel by which the “heart”, the very being, expressed itself. Immoral behavior (“evil intentions ...”, v. 19) does alienate one from God (“defile”, v. 20) but not breaking laws of human origin or misunderstandings of God’s own Word.
Christocentric: We are confronted here with the reality of Jesus being the Christ. He is the authoritative prophet, priest, and king from God. His word is greater than the tradition of the rabbis of Israel. His interpretation of the dietary laws is enough to change the practice of God’s people. One must see Him as the one who has sight while orthodox Judaism is blind. We must recognize the strong demand here to bow the knee to Jesus as the ultimate authority over life and faith.
Moral: Don’t sweat the superficial and small things. Don’t focus life on things that end up in the sewer or the trash. Do be concerned about your words and deeds. Do worry about what your words and deeds reveal about the condition of your heart. Don’t view yourself as righteous and good because you keep a few “outward” Christian things. Instead recognize the depth of your sin within your heart and the need for forgiveness. Do not be a blind person leading another blind person. If you are blind then admit it and lead no one. Put first things first. Above all else ask God to give you a pure heart.
Eternal: The greatest joy of heaven will be that the controversies will be over, the questions will be all answered, and most important of all our hearts will be pure of all sin. The greatest joy of heaven will be that we are really morally clean, washed pure from all sin, and no longer defiled. We will be cured of our moral cancer and actually experience in our entire being love for God and love for others. We will become an incarnation of love, purity, and holiness. This will be the fulfillment of our greatest potential as human being. Lord, come quickly that we may be pure!
Prayer: Lord, continue to purify my heart. Keep me from superficial self justification of my actions. Lord, work in my heart to give me a greater and greater love for righteousness. Thank you for cleansing me of my sin by your sacrifice on the cross.
Contemplation: Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see me
Action: Make a list of every impure thought, word, and deed today. Seek to become sensitive to wrong intentions, wrong words, and wrong actions. At the end of the day confess these very specific things knowing that the blood of Christ washes away all my defilement. Then be really thankful for Christ’s death for my sins.
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