Daily Scriptures March 12 07 First Thoughts

Jeremiah 7:1-15; Romans 4:1-12; John 7:14-36; Psalm 121:1-8

The Romans text is one of the watchwords of the Reformed tradition: we are made right with God by grace not works, as evidenced in God’s pronouncement on Abraham’s condition before God: "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." It wasn’t his heritage, his circumcision, his law-abiding lifestyle, nor all his do-good deeds that made him right with God. It was that He believed in God before he was ever circumcised, before it was ever a requirement handed down by Moses later. Before he ever did anything, he believed. Period.

A good word today. I reckon that’s enough for me, a consummate “doer.” I believe in Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah, who assured me that nothing I can do can make God love me less, or nothing I can do can make God love me more. I am saved and loved and made right with God by faith in Christ. Period. It’s what I preach.

Yet, working out our salvation – living as righteous people – is an entirely different matter. So warns Jeremiah. God still cares about justice, poverty, the helpless and the aliens among us. Our consideration of them – not just an afterthought as we pass them by – is a response to our faith, is putting our money where our mouth is, our hands and hearts reckoned together. If we believe in God, we believe in God’s causes: whatever God loves, we love. Whatever God hates, we hate. Whatever is God’s cause is our cause. If we believe Jesus has been sent by God, is God with us, that He is the Messiah for us and the world; if we believe we have been made right with God once for all through Jesus; and if Jesus did signs and wonders for others and then told us to go do the same – well then, I guess I have some work to do after all.

Yet, as I read Jesus’ words in John, I know like the Pharisees – and for sure the disciples themselves, I will make excuses for doing nothing about God’s causes; as I’m mindful of my pursuits and protecting my time and energy, while ⁴He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. (Psalm 121:4). I will look and not see Jesus, because we may find Jesus in our hearts, by faith, but we shall miss him in the eyes of the orphans, and widows and strangers among us. And in missing Him there, we miss knowing the One who has called us righteous in the first place. Seek and find Him today in the work He has called you in faith to do.

I reckon you’ll find Jesus there.