Mark Bodenheim (10/12/97)
#3: "There is none righteous, no not one:"

"There is non righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

These are pretty heavy words! The casual/marginal Christian or "spiritual feeling" crowd would say that this is not the Christianity they want to buy into because it is harsh, judgmental, exclusionary and sets people up for feeling depressed about their relationship with God. Taken out of context, I could see their point. But taken in the context that one must feel that they have fallen short of God's standards in order to grow closer to God, Paul's statement makes sense. If we think we can buy our way into heaven through the number of good works we do or how righteous we think we our we are just fooling ourselves into the logical thought process of humans. Even the Buddhist monk can't be pure even if he doesn't communicate with the outside world. If we thought in these terms, men would compete on works and righteousness to gain favor which, because of our human nature, would cloud the purpose of God's Son to us. That by humbling ourselves, admitting our sin, asking for forgiveness and guidance while receiving grace through faith, we are actually freed from human applause/acknowledgment or brownie points with God. We actually are freed so we can do more to make a positive difference on this earth because a scoreboard is not kept but only faith and obedience is asked. The number of "I did this" are reduced while the numbers of "God help me on this" increase. Maybe this is what Jesus meant when saying that our faith could move a mountain. In human measurement terms of success this is not possible, but changing things positively on the margin will eventually move that mountain.

I liked the comment made by the gentleman in our class who stated that Christ was obedient on the cross, without self pride, with anguish, but with the wish of pleasing his Father. If the Sun of God could humble himself this way, we certainly should. And we can't do this until we realize our sinful nature-not to beat us down but to reassure us that our faith connection with God is alive so we can carry on blessing others as we have been blessed ourselves.