Building On The RockSample

A Higher Standard

Jesus was a rebel. He did some things that were obviously intended to provoke the religious leaders of His day. He healed on the Sabbath, He walked through a grain field with his disciples eating kernels of the grain, He refrained from ceremonially washing his hands before He ate, He touched lepers, and He did not fast. In other words, He did not conform to the religious teachings of His day. 

One Sabbath Jesus was in a synagogue and saw a crippled woman. She did not ask for anything, but Jesus initiated contact with her and healed her. She praised God for her healing, but the synagogue leader was indignant and said, “There are six days of the week for working. Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.” (Luke 13:14 NLT) The official misunderstood the incident completely because he saw it through the grid of his religious views. And he saw everything through that grid so that his set of rules became more important than the people before him.

Such incidents were a threat to the leaders of Jesus’ day, so He said to them, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). 

Since “the Law or the Prophets” is a way of describing the Old Testament, Jesus was pointing to their suspicion that He was trying to overturn the Jewish Scriptures altogether. In fact, He was not. He was attempting to overturn the teachings of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. He said to the people, “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). He was not doing away with the Old Testament scriptures; He was going beyond them.

How is your standard of righteousness? Does your righteousness surpass that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law? Do you ever attempt to live on the edge of godliness, or do you aim for the center? That’s where the Lord wants us—in the center of his moral will.

Prayer: Father, keep my heart open to Your divine standards. Help me to aim seriously, but not severely, at the center of Your moral will. May my righteousness surpass the hollow legalism of the Pharisees. May I love You with all my heart and my neighbor as myself.