Luke 6 - continued...

Reading back over yesterday's thoughts, I realized that.. this uncommon life, transformed by renovated and refashioned thinking.. is what it means to live and walk by faith...  It is faith in the final and exalted authority of Jesus Christ that enables us to live beyond our natural tendencies.
By faith we can be blessed even in our poverty, knowing that a greater future is ours in God.
By faith, we can endure the hunger, for we know that we will be forever satisfied.
It is because we believe that a day is coming when we will receive a greater reward in heaven, that we can survive evil men that hate us, ostracize us and throw insults at us.

It is because we believe in Jesus and His love for us that we can love our enemies, do good to those who hurt us, and say good things about those who say bad things about us.
Because we have a Father in heaven Who has mercy on us.. who takes pity on us and shows us compassion...that we can have pity on even our enemies and show them compassion and forgiveness, and forbearance.

"Give and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap.  For by your measure it will be measured to you in return ."  ( verse 38)  That is both a positive and negative  -  If we give good things with generosity of heart - He will pour out His goodness upon us.  But, if we grudgingly give... we will find our blessings curtailed.  If we do evil to others, we will find that evil returns to us with a vengeance.    Do we believe this?  Do we know it to be true in our own lives?

Jesus tells a parable at this point, " A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? will they not both fall into a pit?"  A true statement for sure.. but how does this fit it?  He goes on to tell us that a student is not above his teacher, but will become "like" his teacher when he is fully trained.
This is our purpose... our goal... to be like our Teacher, to be completed in Him.  To be trained by Him.  We cannot remain blind and lead others to Christ.  We must hear what He says and do what He says.. build our lives on the foundation of Truth that He is giving us here in His gracious words. 

That starts with looking inward.. at our own hearts and getting rid of the "log" in our own eyes. We need to have good hearts to bring forth what is good, to bear good fruit.  We cannot do that if our eyes our blinded and our hearts hold onto evil treasures.

Yes, it is an uncommon, completely renovated life that we are called to as disciples of Jesus Christ. We must believe with all of our hearts that what He has told us is TRUE.
We must believe that He has all authority and He will do everything just as He says He will.
Then, we must do just what He has asked us to do.  And do it with "good measure"  - for the measure we use is the measure we receive....

Father in heaven, Abba,  transform our lives by renewing our thinking with the gracious Words of Jesus Christ.  Teach us, train us completely, so that we will be like our Teacher.  Remove the logs in our eyes and the evil treasures from our hearts.  We come in the Name of Jesus, believing that He is Lord of all and this is Your will for us.  Amen.