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"He learned to rule by being merciful. Not haughty. He learned to rule through obedience. Not arrogance."

WHAT DOES it matter what we write if our behavior doesn’t follow it? What does it matter what we say if it is a mirror of our behavior? We are either hiding ourselves and living a lie or telling everything and calling it Truth. Neither lifestyle is like Jesus.

James 1 says we can read God’s Word and quote God’s Word but look away from it and forget its instruction. We do this every day when we look in the mirror. That thing we hate about our appearance is gone as long as we can’t see it.

Problem is, people are looking. People are listening. And they either believe the lie we tell and rejoice in it or they don’t and are not deceived. There shouldn’t be a lie nor a flagrant flipping-off of God’s commandment. Jesus walked totally in God’s commandment. Even in His thought life. This should sober us.

The idea of facing Him in our current state should sober us.

We have made things sin that are not sin and in so doing ignored what is actually sin. We make rules for people to abide by that are not rules of Scripture. The Pharisees were doing this in Jesus’ day, and He corrected them for it (Mark 7:9). Nothing we do offends God to the point He refuses to forgive if we repent. Nothing we say should offend God to the point we have to repent. We should, at all times, BE IN THE SPIRIT and never listening more to our flesh’s desires, to our own selfishness. Jesus thought only of pleasing His Father. Even when what He was about to do required discomfort, He willingly obeyed. And now, He is King.

This bears thought. He learned to rule by being merciful. Not haughty. He learned to rule through obedience. Not arrogance. How much do we love Him for His perfection? That He is tender and generous and kind in the face of selfishness and evil. He sets our example. He isn’t worried about people. He is enough. He isn’t wringing His hands or waving a sword at devils. He destroyed them entirely (1 John 3:8).

He isn’t showing off. He is seen because He is God. He is heard because He is Savior. He is loved because He is human.

“Jesus, with his human mind filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River and was led by the Spirit into the desert,” (Luke 4:1, Remedy)

“For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.” (James 1:23-24)

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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com