February 3, 2017
Becoming Fully Human
“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise,
like a person who builds a house on solid rock.”
Matthew 7:24
Jesus’ last warning (Matthew
7:24-29) is an invitation to fulfill his charge made earlier in the sermon: “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and
live righteously, and he will give you everything you need” (Matthew 6:33).
When we seek to embody within our lives the teaching of Jesus in his Sermon on
the Mount we become fully human, just as our divine master was fully human.
Life lived without adhering to his principals is a sub-human life.
A life lived with a focus on
greed, or the accumulation of power, or living only for pleasure will all
collapse in time. In contrast, those who make seeking the life in Christ their
way of life will experience the presence of Christ in their life today and will
inherit the promise of eternal life, which is life in Christ uninterrupted by
death.
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus
is saying that ultimately, the only important thing in life is how we perceive
God. If we perceive God as generous, gracious, loving and faithful, we will
then embrace the Gospel as truly Good News and joyfully enter into the Kingdom
of God; by the hard road and narrow gate and we will become good and faithful
disciples of Jesus. In our culture, so many people believe human life is nothing
more than billions of years of evolution and survival of the fittest. Such a
world view hardly motivates people to get out of their comfort zone and live
self-sacrificial lives. Over and against this reality of present day life, Jesus
is saying that if I choose to live under the reign of my generous, gracious,
loving and faithful God, my mission is to live my life as salt and light for those
for whom the love of God is still a stranger.
Sē’lah
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(Selah is a word that appears in the
Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my
correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about
these things.)
These
meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his
way of life. The meditations are
published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/
and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may
subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by
subscription.
Publications by Alex M. Knight:
·
Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New
Testament and Psalms has been
published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.
·
The second
edition of First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.
·
Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus
Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.
Unless
otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible,
New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House
Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream,
Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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