Levels part 3
One of the most self-righteous things a person can do is to look down on someone else. Get all haughty and think, "I'm at a higher level than you, so that makes me better than you!" Because here's what Isaiah 64:6 says about OUR righteousness: "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags..." One qualifier here--that was BEFORE the cross. Before Jesus washed us with the Word (of love). Before, "...he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Did you see the small, but crucial difference there? OUR righteouesness is as filthy rags. Useless. Worthless. Until they were cleaned. Until we were made the righteousness OF GOD in Him. Out of the Old Man and into the New Man. Out of Adam and into Christ. Because realistically there are only two levels. Only two men that have ever lived. Adam and Jesus. And they both died on the cross. But only one of them rose again. Jesus drew us all into Himself when He was lifted up from the earth. He brought us out of death and into life. Into HIS life. The abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God. A life of love. Life... on a whole different level. I guess what I'm trying to say is, we always want to put people in little boxes. "Sinner and saint." But even that isn't enough. Because we want to talk about how "good" of a Christian we are. Or how "bad" of a Christian Brother So and So is. I don't think there's such a thing as a "good Christian." Because Christian means "Christ-like," right? And, believe it or not, we ARE complete in Him. When we look into the mirror with an unveiled face--Moses put a veil over his face so the people wouldn't be afraid, but now we take the veil AWAY so people won't be afraid!--we see the glory of the Lord. And we're changed into that same image FROM glory TO glory. We start at glory. The ground is even at that the cross. Doing religious jumping jacks doesn't make you better than someone else. It simply makes you more self-righteous. And according to Galatians 5:4 that's the only way to fall from grace: to try to justifiy yourself by the law. To say, "...God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even this publican" (Luke 18:11). That Pharisee was NOT justified. Because he was judging himself (and everyone else) according to the Law. And that wasn't the point of the Law. The point of the Law was that something needed to lead us to Christ. To show us that we can't, so we would trust that HE would. Romans 3:19 says it like this, "Now we know that what things so ever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." I think tomorrow I'm going to get into how we deal with people under the Law (and how we deal with people who could care less about the Law). But for today I'm trying to say--the Law was given to shut us all up. So we wouldn't have anything to brag about. To show us that we are utterly powerless to do anything on our own. And to show us that we are MORE than conquerors through Him that loves us. We couldn't do it. So He did. For us, and as us. And now we're all (in a sense) at the same level. Because, again, we are all COMPLETE in Him. We start at glory and we move deeper into glory. That's THE level!