July 21: The Gateway to the Kingdom
Today in My Utmost for His Highest: http://www.myutmost.org/07/0721.html
Several years ago I led a Bible study on Matthew 5-7, distributing a 2-page handout that listed all the characteristics of a Christian that Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. After the ladies had studied the sheet for a few minutes, there was an uncomfortable silence in the room before one of them blurted out, "So, we're pretty much sunk, then." Unfortunately, I did not do nearly as good a job as Chambers of leading those people from the despair of confronting their poverty of spirit to the entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven.
To read the Sermon on the Mount is to be amazed at the oratory skill of Jesus! Somehow He managed to simultaneously strip people of their SELF worth while showing them the potential of their GOD worth if they joined the Kingdom of Heaven. As a child, did you ever have one of those paint-with-water books? The pages looked like a coloring book until you "painted" the sections with a cotton swab dipped in water. Previously invisible colors instantly appeared like magic. Our lives are colorless, too, until we allow ourselves to be swabbed by the transforming power of Jesus. Like the water on the book's pages, the blood that He shed for our sins is the catalyst that makes us bloom into what we were created to be.
Several years ago I led a Bible study on Matthew 5-7, distributing a 2-page handout that listed all the characteristics of a Christian that Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. After the ladies had studied the sheet for a few minutes, there was an uncomfortable silence in the room before one of them blurted out, "So, we're pretty much sunk, then." Unfortunately, I did not do nearly as good a job as Chambers of leading those people from the despair of confronting their poverty of spirit to the entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven.
To read the Sermon on the Mount is to be amazed at the oratory skill of Jesus! Somehow He managed to simultaneously strip people of their SELF worth while showing them the potential of their GOD worth if they joined the Kingdom of Heaven. As a child, did you ever have one of those paint-with-water books? The pages looked like a coloring book until you "painted" the sections with a cotton swab dipped in water. Previously invisible colors instantly appeared like magic. Our lives are colorless, too, until we allow ourselves to be swabbed by the transforming power of Jesus. Like the water on the book's pages, the blood that He shed for our sins is the catalyst that makes us bloom into what we were created to be.
posted by Jane at 3:42 AM
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