Matthew 7:1-12
Kingdom Minds, Kingdom Relationships, Kingdom Righteousness. The next subject in becoming of the Kingdom, which Jesus offered in Matthew 4:17, is Kingdom Enforcement. Isn't that a trial for all of us?
If we are not careful, we will try to turn everyone into one of us. When they appear to be something other than us we will point our fingers, gossip, slander, back-bite--all in a "righteous" kind of way. We will forget what messes we are, because in our own standard we're usually pretty high up on the righteous scale.
Notice in vs. 1-5, Jesus speaks concerning "brothers"; in v. 6, Jesus appears to be speaking of those who have no respect for our religiosity--i.e., what is holy, and your pearls, those religious things that are precious to us. While we tend to make cookie cutter Christians at church, we then try to impose those standards on the world; the world just scoffs and laughs while churches just split.
How does God treat others? What example do we have to follow? While we are caught up in our own self-righteousness, you would think God would have every right to be caught up in His. How does He hold it over our heads and flaunt it? "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you......So, whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets" (vs. 7-12).
As we get caught up in this Kingdom conversation, we are challenged from all sides. If we are to seek to live the Kingdom life--the abundant life--we must focus our minds on the Kingdom and not allow the trash of the earth to invade it. We must focus on relationships that reflect the Kingdom. We must have outward religious disciplines that are an overflow of our inner Kingdom life rather than contradictory to it. Now, we must be careful to not use our own lives to be the Kingdom standard of judgment.
I think the question to meditate on is this: who is king of your kingdom? That may sound trite, but if you and I both go throughout the day and ask that question in ever area of our lives, we might be surprised just how many places we have raised our own flags of conquest. If it's our kingdom very, very few will ever measure up to sharing it. We'll measure other Christian's authenticity by our own. We'll try to impose our standards of living upon the lost. We will be, in the end, much like a father who gives his son a stone rather than bread. We'll be giving people, not the Kingdom of God, but our kingdom--something they don't need!
We can't force people from wrong into right. We can't mold people into members of the Kingdom. We can love them into the Kingdom--because as we show God's love, God touches lives!
Somebody sing kum-by-ya and let's go to work and love people!
