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Responding to God's Call

In the ninth chapter of his gospel, Matthew recorded these words of Jesus: “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” [Matthew 9:13] These words are challenging for those who see God as distant, angry and vengeful. They are even more of a challenge for those who justify their own emotional distance, anger and desire for revenge by confusing those things with godliness. But we have to save that for another time.

The culture of Jesus’ day was quite different from that of our own, but human nature is remarkably similar. Self-righteousness and self-justification abounded then, just as they abound today. Jesus was particularly direct with the Pharisees, who tried to please God through rigorous self-discipline and careful law-keeping - at least externally. During the time of the Lord’s ministry on earth, He was particularly direct in challenging their assumption that God was more concerned with actions than attitudes, with behaviour than beliefs.

Jesus made it clear that faulty belief always produced bad behaviour (even if it looked good it was stimulated by sinful motivations). He knew that our actions would never be perfect because of the sinfulness of our old nature. But when our heart is correctly aligned with the Father’s heart there is a general inclination in the right direction. We know that, so we ask for God’s mercy when we fall short.

Because God is always consistent, He asks us to be holy as He is holy. Because he is merciful to us, he requires mercy from us as we deal with others. Oddly some people who have been forgiven a great deal by God can be quite harsh with others when their weaknesses, faults, mistakes and sin become obvious. Jesus went so far as to make a direct link between our being forgiven by God and our forgiving those who have wronged us. He emphasized the point by repeating it in the disciples’ prayer “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” and in the parable of the unmerciful servant “Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?”

The way we treat others should reflect the way God has treated us. This is one of the ways we glorify God - we reflect His likeness to all those in our sphere of influence. When we get out of step with God, we start trying to hold others to a standard that we ourselves cannot keep. This casts doubt on the authenticity of our own relationship with God. Remember, God is not calling the self-righteous - those who believe that somehow they have gained God’s approval. He calls sinners - those who recognize that they have absolutely no standing with God other than what Jesus did by dying for them.

When it comes to responding to God’s call, there’s a world of difference between standing on your own righteousness and coming up short and confessing your sin and finding mercy.

Ron Hughes
© September 2008