Today I will write on the last section of the Sermon on the Mount wherein Jesus teaches us how to know God’s nature, and Man’s. God knows our nature, and helps us to go beyond our realm of understanding, motivating us to walk in faith and not by habit nor by following other people’s ideas.
Beginning with Matthew 7:7, Jesus encourages us to approach God the Father with our requests by seeking, knocking, and asking. He compares our own good intentions with God’s nature, leading us to conclude that His superior goodness would out-do any good we could do on the earth. Giving God credit for being at least as good as we are allows men to take what they know about themselves and attribute it to God. This is a new concept. In the Old Testament God seemed distant and unapproachable to the common man. Jesus is teaching that, as men are good to their children, God is good to His children. As men, imperfect as they are, know how to give good things, so how much better does God know how to do good.
To be God-like, we treat others as we want to be treated. This concept invites men to reason within their own experiences and use their own likes and dislikes as a reference for good behavior. It gives credit to men for knowing what good behavior is and forms a bond with God by validating that Man has an ability to reason. Part of God’s nature is worked in us when we treat others the way we ourselves would want to be treated, for it works justice in us. In asking us to treat others the way we want to be treated Jesus is showing men how to be just, like God is just.
Jesus then tells us about two ways to enter into God’s fellowship. One is wide. You could say that the wide way is the popular way to go . . . a direction where you’d find yourself following along with many others if you enter this gate. The other is narrow. There actually aren’t many people to follow along with through this gate, however it leads to Life. By using the wide and narrow gates as examples of entry into fellowship with God, Jesus is pointing out that men’s opinions and well-established habits create a gate that just about anyone could easily fit themselves into; It is wide, sensible, and easy, and full of the carnal ways of the flesh and this world. Because of our human nature, many people will choose the wide gate. The narrow gate is different because God’s thoughts and well-established guidelines for living our lives are based on His thinking and not ours; they are much narrower and well-defined, and are imparted to us through His Holy Spirit. God’s ways are not easy, nor does our carnal mind find them reasonable, at first. But those who are trained by God’s ways find Life; a Life they lay down all else for.
Because of Man’s inclination to follow other men, Jesus gives us a way to discern religious leaders. By looking at what a prophet’s life produces, we can know if his thinking is good. A leader who is following Jesus’ leading through the narrow gate will shed popular teachings for those which prepare his listeners to make good, life-changing decisions. Those who hear these good prophets will be molded more into Christ’s image. However, false prophets produce bad fruit. These men love their own image and teach their listeners to love their own selves as well. The fruit they bear will be self-determination, and self-image. False prophets have no enduring kingdom work on the earth because they lead men away from the Holy Spirit; therefore they lead men to destruction.
It is as important to know our own selves as it is to examine those we follow. In the parable about building our house on solid rock Jesus brings us back to what we value in our hearts, and its effect on our life’s work. It takes a lot of effort to dig down to the rock. It is a good way to prepare, though, for Jesus’ words are the rock which gives life. Moving the rubble of our lives aside for His Word, and then putting His Word into practice will cause what we build to last throughout the storms of our lives. However, just as human nature causes us to prefer a wide, unrestrictive gate of fellowship with God, so does it develop lazy spirituality in the lives of those who do not get down to the bottom of what God is saying to them. Foolish people come to ruin because they prefer their own thinking to God’s. Wise people are established because they value and build upon what God has said, and is saying to them.
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