Matthew 5:17-20
17 “Don’t assume that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For I assure you: Until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter a or one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all things are accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches people to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever practices and teaches these commandments will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Romans 8:1-4
1 Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus, 2 because the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 What the law could not do since it was limited by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending His own Son in flesh like ours under sin’s domain, and as a sin offering, 4 in order that the law’s requirement would be accomplished in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Related Text:
Psalm 119:161-176
Matthew 22:34-40
Romans 3:21-31
Romans 7-8
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Smoke and Mirrors?
The Pharisees were a very respected and influential group of religious leaders. They were know for strict commitment to following the Hebrew Law exactly as it was written.
They focused so much on displaying the correct behavior that they missed it when their Scriptures revealed that Jesus was the Messiah. They started out with good intentions, but they became blind to what Jesus was doing and deaf to the truth He was proclaiming. Jesus cared more about a person’s inward condition; He focused on your heart, your mind, your attitude, and your motives. The Pharisees were focused more on the behavior of a person and their outward appearance. (Just a quick note, but super huge. When God truly changes your heart and everything on the inside, that will naturally affect a change in your outward appearance! You won’t be going through the motions, you will be living by faith.)
Jesus constantly battled the Pharisees over their external appearance vs. their inward motives and attitudes. He even called them “painted tombs” because they looked good on the outside (by doing the right actions), but they were dead on the inside (because their hearts were in the wrong place).
When Jesus has changed you on the inside, when your heart has been molded like His, when He has changed the way you think and see the world around you, you will be different on the outside too! You’ll sound different, act different, care about things like never before.
I challenge you to read Luke 14:25-35. It talks about what it is going to cost you to be a follower of Jesus. Most of us probably didn’t have to give up much to become a Christian. I’m sure some of you have a very impactful story about your choice to follow Jesus, and I don’t want to belittle that in the least. But for the most of us, we probably didn’t get thrown out of the house when we became a Christian, or we didn’t get ostracized from our community, or get thrown into prison because of our beliefs. We weren’t beaten and hospitalized as a deterrent to stop being a Christian. We don’t experience much of this type persecution.
But sometimes, not having to really give up something to follow Christ has the tendency to allow us to become complacent in our spiritual lives. Eventually, we start going through the motions and forget about the change that God has made in our hearts and minds; in our inside. We skim over passages like Luke 14:25-35. They make us uncomfortable. I encourage you and ask God to encourage me to live exactly like 2 Corinthians 5:15 says, to no longer live for ourselves, but live for Jesus who died for us.
Read those tough passages in scripture that challenge you to give up everything that makes you comfortable so that you can follow Jesus anywhere. Pray that God will give you ideas on how to impact the world around you for Him. Ask Him for help, don’t just go through life as a painted tomb.
