Jesus was not a teacher/preacher that candy-coated things. He is the epitome of grace and mercy, yet His messages were not watered down to appeal to more people. Let's face it, there are those among us today, like many walking the dusty streets of Biblical times, that do not want to hear they are living wrong. They prefer to hear only the good they can expect when they accept Jesus to the hard-hitting consequences of not following the guidelines He set before us. Friends, to receive the benefits, one must live out the life of a believer as Jesus spelled out in scripture. This cannot be done in a cotton candy faith walk.
At one time prior to and during my Christian infancy, I made the decision that all things Old Testament were obsolete and had no bearing on my faith walk. I was wrong; deadly wrong….eternally not in heaven wrong. Many people believe as I did and I am concerned for them. In Matthew 5:17-20 Jesus says, 'don’t think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. Yes, indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth have passed away, not so much as a yud (the 10th and smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet) or a stroke will pass from the Torah – not until everything that must happen has happened. So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvoth (command, commandments) and teaches others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called the great in the Kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness is far greater than that of the Torah-teachers and P'rushim (religious leaders whose studies focused on what the Torah required of people's lives), you will certainly not enter the
There went my whole theory that the Old Testament did not apply anymore. Jesus tied the knot between obeying the teachings and prophesies from the Old Testament to even entering Heaven. Prophesies of the Messiah are all through the O.T. and Jesus, Himself, said he came to fulfill them. So, since you are reading this, it is safe to say 'heaven and earth' has not passed away so we do not get to eliminate anything, not the smallest letter, from the Torah if we plan on getting into heaven.
This begs the question, are we merely following Christian traditions or following Jesus Christ? I ask this because a great many Christians think we are free from the law, Torah, because of Jesus Christ, yet, here we have Him saying this is not so. I think it becomes a slippery slope when we confuse the laws God gave the people with the laws and restrictions the religious leaders imposed on the people. Yes, Jesus did refute the man-made laws and freed us from those. However, the God-given laws were never refuted. In The verses from Matthew above, He says they should not even be messed with. He goes on in the following scriptures to underscore His requirements that are even more stringent than those handed down in Jewish teachings. Not one single sugarcoated statement among them!
Because of Jesus, we are forgiven our sins. We are made righteous through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. These are blessed things we, on our own, can not achieve. It would be a deception and disservice to preach/teach anything other than Jesus and that which He gave us in scripture. As a wise woman once told me, "You cannot pick and choose what you like from the Bible. You either believe it all or you don't.' If we do not share/teach/preach everything from the Bible, that which is easy to live with, that which is hard to follow and the dire consequences thereof, we are NOT teaching the whole of what Jesus came to say and do. I'll ask again, "Are we following Christian tradition or Jesus Christ?"
1 comment:
Trying to follow Jesus. To be honest, I fall down and get up many times daily. Thanks for your encouragement. Laurie M.
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