His Nature and Our Motives
“. . . unless
your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, you
will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:20
The characteristic of a disciple is not
that he does good things, but that he is
good in his motives, having been made
good by the supernatural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right-doing
is right-being. Jesus Christ came to place within anyone who would
let Him a new heredity that would have a righteousness exceeding that of the Scribes
and Pharisees. Jesus is saying, "If
you are my disciple, you must be right not only in your actions, but also in
your motives, your aspirations, and in the deep recesses of the thoughts of
your mind." Your motives must be so pure that God Almighty can see
nothing to rebuke.
Who can stand in the eternal light of God
and have nothing for Him to rebuke? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ
claims that through His redemption He can place within anyone His own nature
and make that person as pure and simple as a child. The purity that God demands
is impossible unless I can be remade
within, and that is exactly what
Jesus has undertaken to do through His redemption.
No one can make himself pure by obeying
laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations — He gives us His
teachings which are truths that can only be interpreted by His nature which He places within us. The great wonder of Jesus
Christ’s salvation is that He changes our heredity. He does not change human
nature — He changes its source, and
thereby its motives as well.
Taken
from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. copyright 1935 by Dodd Mead
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If you desire Himself alone to fill
you,
For Him alone you care to live and
be;
Then ‘tis not you, but CHRIST
Who dwells within you,
And that, O child of God, is Victory!