"The teaching of the sermon on the mount is not 'Do your Duty' but is, in effect, "Do what is NOT your duty.' It is not your duty to go the second miles, or to turn the other cheek, but Jesus said that if we are His disciples, we will always do these things. We will not say 'oh well, I just can't do anymore, and I've been so misrepresented and misunderstood.' Everytime I insist on having my OWN rights, I hurt the Son of God, while in fact I can prevent Jesus from being hurt if I will take the blow myself.
That is the real meaning of filling 'up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ...' (Colossians 1:24). A disciple realizes that it is his or her Lord's honor that is at stake in his life, NOT his or her OWN honor." -Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest July 14
One thing I have seen this summer is this; people always have rights (or at least think they do). People have come into to our church wishing to work their right to be married, and then their right to be married in THIS church at THIS time in THIS building. We have a right to life, liberty, and happiness. A right to buy our own cars and houses, to listen to our favorite bands and read any book we desire. We believe there is a right to free speech, to bearing arms, and to having individual opinions and beliefs. Some want more rights; the right to marry anyone of any gender, the right to abort their unborn children, the right to research stem cells or to have universal health care. And so we argue these rights, we debate on Capitol Hill, we fight and say why or why not something is right, wrong, or just plain gray. And in the end, if we are truly followers of Jesus Christ we need to affirm one thing, and one things only.
We have no rights.
Our rights are merely us emphasising us. It is a necessity in government to have rights in order to keep the weakerthans from complete and utter oppression, but in the end what is our right as a Christian? Are we not slaves and servants to our Savior rather than our own self-serving rights? We live in a society of hierarchies and principalities. We go to our city councils who adhere to our state governments, who adhere to our Capitol and we can keep going higher and higher but in the end, who is allegiance really to? America? Grand Rapids? Our family name or favorite sports team? No. It's to Him, Christ.
People presuppose their rights. In fact, it is one of the greatest duties of the church to break down such a misconceptions that we have such rights. People come to church, stating they have rights. A right not to tithe due to their lack of possessions. A right not to sing due to their right to have their praise music as they like it. A right to treat one's body as one's will desires, that gluttony of food and drink, drug and sex, lust and greed, is merely archaic law killing our joy and natural inclination towards enjoyment. A right to be angry at one's friends, parents, and brother because of their hurtful words, their malicious treatment, and their inability to look past our skin and bones to who we really are.
Is it no wonder that Christ asked that before we come to him in prayer, that we go forgive anyone whom has sinned against us before going to Him (Mark 11:25)? As Christ-Followers, NEVER did he make it a requirement that we turn our cheek to others, rather, He simply says that those who truly follow and have faith in Him will naturally, though maybe unwillingly, will do so. They will conform to the will of Christ rather than one's self right to be angry at their brother, sister, or friend. The Christian at his or her perfected state admits no rights to themselves or anything else; their possessions, friends, loves, and life are His, the world and all that is in it. This world is on-loan and until the Christian can accept this, they will only consistently and persistently break the heart of their Savior by asserting their rights and ownership over what is not theirs. We, in the process of placing our name and title upon our possessions, our friends, our family, our bodies, and our feelings of anger and pain, merely ignore the Creator of all while idolizing and worshiping the paintings and charcoal sketches of our Lord. Creation, gift that it be, is by no means the one who created it. A creation is to be marvelled, but it is it's Creator that we must love. To state that we have rights to anything in their cosmic piece of art is little else than to anchor ourselves in an imperfect world when what Christ called us to all along was to throw off our fetters and bonds of right and privilege in order to allow our wings to stretch and our hearts to soar to the one who calls them.
As C.S. Lewis writes "When God arrives (and only then) that the half-gods can remain" (The Four Loves) It is only when we accept that our rights to indignation and sympathy our meaningless that we can, for the first time, throw caution to the wind and allow the Spirit of God to come inside our torn and wretched bodies and hearts. And it is in that moment that we can truly accept that our lives and all that is in them is not a right fulfilled, but a gift given. And it is when we accept that this gift; a life we are not worthy of, colours and sounds fit for a king, and loved ones irreplaceable, that we can finally accept the gift of grace; Divine Love.
It is by this Divine Love that "...in man and woman, enables them to love what is naturally unlovable; lepers, criminals, enemies, morons, the sulky, the superior, and the sneering." (The Four Loves). Our only right in this world is a right to rebel, to be an individual, to sin and err and spew fallacy and hurt. Christianity is not a right, it is a sacrifice of worship holy and pleasing to our Lord (Romans 12:1-2), it is stating we are not our own but belong every inch and hair to our Savior, that we burn and refine away all that is not Him in order that what little remains is pure and perfect reflection of Him.
Have we let our own honor and individuality and rights to privilege come in our way on the path towards our utmost conformity to Christ? Are we drowning in pools of self-pity and remorse in aquatic pits and tanks we constructed around ourselves? Are we so busy screaming to the world that our rights and feeling have been hurt that we cannot hear the whispers of Christ desiring us to let go of such rights and control, that we can, in fact, be free from such petty and ugly bickering and hate?
Someday, when we pass from this earth, we will face those who we quarrelled with, bickered with, accepted tremendous and grievous hurt from, and in that Heavenly realm it will not be our store of bitter and snarky statements that we will remember, no, it will be our love that will be remembered. Even the greatest of enemies of war come to realize in the Heavenly Realms that their right to war and anger carries very little weight in a world where such hate and indignation is nothing more than the waste and feces of our new bodies.
It's all about grace. What is grace? It is that we have no outstanding right to.
Forgive your brother
Forgive your sister
Forgive your friends, your ex's, your deepest and darkest nemesis
Forgive yourself.
And give up your rights. Love. Simple as that.
Yet so hard...
Take care you all...will be home soon!!
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