If/when Jesus... is not truly Lord (or King) of our lives, we have a tendency to ‘do what is right in our own eyes’; and this has been a pattern or rut humanity has fallen into for a long time. (Judges 21:25)

Have you ever been around a construction project where precise measuring was absolutely necessary, and you hear these random phrases like “I’ll just eyeball it”, or...”That looks close enough for me!”? My favorite was “It’s good enough for government work”, which always gave me pause.

Yeah...you’d be surprised how often we do that with our Bibles when it comes to preaching the gospel; why do you think we have so many varied denominations (and their assorted doctrines) out there that can confuse the heck out of believers and non-believers alike?

In his letter to the Romans, Paul was expressing his concerns for his fellow brethren (the Jews), and he acknowledges that they did indeed have a ‘zeal for God....but not according to knowledge” (10:2). He flat out declares they were “ignorant of God’s righteousness...and sought to establish their own righteousness”, and because of this, they had not “submitted to the righteousness of God.” (3). And for the sake of this study, let’s keep the definition for ‘God’s righteousness’ short and simple- it is doing what is ‘right in God’s eyes’, as opposed to our own eyes and beliefs. Have you ever noticed that ‘second part’ that Jesus told us to ‘seek first’, in Matt. 6:33?

In other words, we can be guilty of ‘eyeballing’ how we measure up in our eyes...when it comes to what God desires and/or expects of us; and while we may be ‘sincere’ in our thinking and beliefs...we can also be ‘sincerely wrong’. Thank goodness we have God’s word to look to, in the same way that a contractor has a level, or square, or a plumb line to double check their measurements.

We read in Amos 7:7-8, this use of a ‘plumb line’, which is a ‘metaphor for God’s unwavering standard of righteousness, truth and judgment’ to show that Israel no longer measured up to His standard of holiness...suggesting that judgment was inevitable. And this takes me back to our study from yesterday that I still can't forget or lay aside, even though the enemy would like me to do (Luke 8:12).

King Josiah had purposed to ‘do what was right in the sight of the Lord’ (2 Kings 22:2), and after a few years into his reign, he makes sure to provide the needed funds to begin work on repairing the temple of God. And as we pointed out yesterday, it wasn’t until after...he saw/heard God’s law read to him...that this ‘repair job’ took on a whole new level of intensity and seriousness. I have to stress that this came about after...he had a greater understanding ( or 'awakening' perhaps?) of what God’s word had declared. If you spent any amount of time pouring over chapter 23 there, it is quite fascinating to see how many different terms and expressions are used to describe the actions taken by the workers in order to ‘purify’ the temple of everything that God said was unclean and an abomination.

So let’s connect some more dots here and draw some parallels with this incredible story from the OT and how it relates to us today. As I mentioned early last week, we are living very much in a time that was similar to Josiah’s day, in the fact that the ‘law has been lost’ to much of the NT church, and in our understanding of it and how and why it remains relevant today, especially for those who are NOT following Jesus (Gal. 5:18). We don’t understand this subject of God’s ‘wrath’...because we don’t understand the importance of God’s ‘law’. Hence...the reason many of God’s people today continue to suffer needlessly (Hosea 4:6; John 5:14; 1 John 5:18; Rom. 8:13; Gal. 6:7-8).

We know that Jesus did not ‘abolish’ or ‘repeal’ the law, by His own admission (Matt. 5:17). In fact, right after He makes that known, He begins to point back to some of God’s commandments from early on (“you have heard it was said...” Matt. 5:21,27,33,38). Then He brings added clarity with follow-up statements like: “But I say to you...” and then lays down new expectations and commands. Take a look at his reference to ‘not committing adultery’ in Matt.5:27. He in a sense...’raises the bar’ stating that if one even looks after a woman lustfully in his heart...he’s already committed the sinful act’ (28). He also does this with murder and dealing with enemies, etc., to name a few.

Now look at Matt. 5:48 where He makes it as plain as day what the ‘specs’ for this transformation process that He came to do in us...looks like: “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” This is usually where all the ‘rattling religious sabers’ some out in the form of man-made doctrines and traditions that wants to refute God’s word and replace it with their own standards of righteousness, which the Pharisees were known for doing (Mark 7:6-9,13).  "Has God really said?" (Gen. 3:1; 2:17)

And instead of muttering phrases like “close enough for gov’t work’ or ‘looks good to me’, we hear repeated...statements like “God knows you could never be perfect and holy like Him”, or “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” We are indoctrinated early on...”You are a sinner and will always sin on this side of heaven”, because you are a flawed and imperfect human being. So how do we end up living and walking like? Not like Jesus, by our own admission (Rom. 8:29; 1 John 2:6) We ‘compare ourselves by ourselves’ (which is unwise 2 Cor 10:12 ) and ‘humbly’ claim to be... ‘saints who sin’...but are ‘saved by grace’.

So...what are we supposed to be removing from our defiled temples? Is it just those areas we deem to be ‘really bad’, like murder and most sexual sins and wicked acts of violence? I mean, there is no way that God would expect us to actually be ‘holy as He is holy’ now, is there (1 Pet. 1:14-16)? Let me ask you this? What kind of a church is He coming back for, according to Eph. 5:27 or 2 Cor. 11:2? And have you ever really given thought to what that passage in Heb. 12:14 means, where it says “without this holiness (or sanctification)... no one will see the Lord? Could this possibly have anything to do with who Jesus said would be the ones who would actually ‘see God’...in Matt. 5:8? (What kind of heart?).

I hope you don’t think this is some ‘April Fool’s Day joke’. Join me tomorrow?