“For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 5:20)

This powerful remark made by Jesus in his sermon on the Mount has puzzled me, partly because I can’t picture what the Pharisees and teachers believed, or what sort of thing “righteousness” was to them or to me. When I read 1John 2:7 & 10: “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love is from God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. . . This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins,” Jesus’ words began to resonate.

We cannot love as God loves, but when we first recognize God’s love for us, then we have opened the very door of the kingdom of God. John went on to write, “We love because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19). It’s not as if God first loved all of humanity,(He did), but for every single soul, God takes the initiative in loving. He loves each of us before we are even born. It is the quick or slow realization of this love in us that makes the difference and puts our feet on the path to the kingdom of God.

In the Old Testament, God chose “favorites.” He chose Moses to be His own mouthpiece, and He chose David as “A man after my own heart.” The prophets, too, were spokesmen for Him. In a tumultuous time, God told Jeremiah that He would give him his life, when others were trying to kill Jeremiah. He told Jeremiah that He would give His people “A Heart to know me. . . for they will return to me with all their heart.” (Jeremiah 24:7)

( Jesus said that the greatest commandment was, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, and your mind. (Matthew 22:36)

God chose Abraham and credited him with “righteousness” for believing in God’s promise of a son. God continued to choose souls who would respond to His love, until He brought His own son into the world through whom all people could experience God’s love in order to return that love to Him and receive eternal life. Our “righteousness” is really a person, the person of Jesus, who rose from death and offers his loving relationship with his Father God to his brothers and sisters to share. In accepting his gift to us, we enter his world and become one of God’s family.

Love in Him,

Prue