toney

It seems that the last half of this past century the church has become so "grace" oriented that the law side of God has been diminished and diluted. The moral basis of the Old Law is still intact today. It is possible to be works oriented and lose the "spirit" of the law. Rules and "things" become emphasized and the spirit of Grace and Love is lost. On the other hand, when God's people only want to hear about God's love and grace, standards of holiness begin to fall and everybody wants to hear about how everybody sins more of less every day. Eventually it becomes more,than less.

Being focused on living a life of right living is in contrast to a life where the pursuit of pleasure and selfish gain is paramount. This righteousness is God's standard of conduct and does seem to allude us sometimes. But deep in every man is a place that God has marked and only a life of holiness will satisfy that. The filling that he promises is the satisfaction and rest that will come when we are enabled to live to a standard of righteousness that you and God will be happy with.

The world's ideal is to be agressive, taking not giving, or step on someone else if it will boost me up the ladder. Meekness is a surrender of our own rights. It is a willingness to refuse to partake of a dog-eat-dog way of dealing with our fellowman. Humility is an honest evaluation of ourselves. In Romans 12:3 it says a man should "not think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly." Humility is our access to grace and grace is our way to Christlikeness.

It is necessary to be aware of our poverty because is only responsive to a broken and a contrite heart. The scripture says that "Godly sorrow works repentance." It is a sorrow that truly recognizes our sinfulness before God and our hopelessness without His mercy. Just accepting Christ doesn't seem to me to be truly sorrowful for your sins. My experience has taught me that my whole Christian life has required a certain amount of mourning. Mourning my inconsistencies, my stupidity, my failures, my thoughtless words that have hurt my wonderful wife, and a whole lot of other human frailties that I have. I mourn and pray that God will be merciful and forgive me and help me improve.

The first part of each blessing listed in the Beatitudes is the quality of character that Jesus says is blessed and the second part is the reward that comes from the expression of that quality and it always seems surprisingly more fulfilling than that quality should merit. In answer to the second question about paradoxes, I think that part of a teachers ability to communicate to his students lies in the ability to grab their attention. Paradoxes do that, as well as reminding us that many of life's most valuable lessons are learned from situations or experiences from which we least expected. The relationship between the Beatitudes and the Fruit of the Spirit is this. The behavior expressed in the Beatitudes will produce the qualities listed in the Fruit of the Spirit.