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Words and walk
Thursday, December 4, 2014
First Week of Advent
Matthew 7:24-25
Jesus was finishing his “sermon on the mount” and said to the people, “These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit – but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.
And when Jesus finished speaking, the people burst into applause. They had not heard words like this before. Jesus was living out his own teaching, which made his words rich, strong, true. This was the best teaching they had ever heard.
Dallas Willard said of Jesus, “He was the smartest man who ever lived. He is now supervising the entire course of world history … He always has the best information on everything and certainly also on the things that matter most in human life.”
How then shall we live? The only life that makes any sense founds itself on the model Jesus gives us. To be saved is just the start – saved for what? Saved to live like Jesus.
His sermon on the mount is full of hard sayings, which are impossible when we live out of fear and self-protection. Willard’s masterpiece The Divine Conspiracy suggests that we need to hear Jesus’ words for the renewal of our hearts. Willard says, “Then the doing of what he did and said becomes the natural expression of who we are in him.” Our hearts are made to be permeated by love, not kept protected.
It is during the silences between breaths, between heartbeats, between words that the renewal takes place. When I am not defending or rationalizing anything, when I am listening without expectation, Jesus’ words enable my heart to return to its original state. I can give again, and not be afraid of what will happen next.
Advent. Short days, long nights. Short talk, long silence. Be still and know.
Be still and be known – there is that, too, Lord. I want to seek you while you may be found. And please, Lord, search me and know me. Test my anxious thoughts. And lead me in the way everlasting.
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