Is Jesus' way hard?

Monday, May 18, 2008

Following up on my sermon yesterday, on being transformed by immersion into the Name, by joining in the Dance, Dallas Willard sums up Matthew, chapter 5, the section I was referencing as frustrating... it seems so hard to do. how can I do that? how can I get that new heart?

He has just argued that Jesus, and Paul in I Cor. 13, says it is Love that does these things (eg. acts with goodness toward our enemy). Our call is to "pursue love" (1 Cor. 14:1). To turn to Jesus (repent and believe), to be baptized (immersed in the life of the Triune community), is to embrace or take hold of love...

"Is it then hard to do the things with which Jesus Illustrates the kingdom heart of love? Or the things that Paul says love does? It is very hard indeed if you have not been substantially transformed in the depths of your being, in the intricacies of your thoughts, feelings, assurances, and dispositions, in such a way that you are permeated with love. Once that happens, then it is not hard. What would be hard is to act the way you acted before..."

When Jesus hung on the cross and prayed, "Father, forgive them because they do not understand what they are doing," that was not hard for him. What would have been hard for him would have been to curse his enemies and spew forth vileness and evil upon everyone, God and the world... He calls us to him to impart himself to us. He does not call us to do what he did, but to be as he was, permeated with love. Then the doing of what he did and said becomes the natural expression of who we are in him."
(The Divine Conspiracy, p. 183)

This is helpful. I still have that "now and not yet" of being permeated with love yet still having roots of vileness and evil lodged in my heart. However I am hopeful, that love is unconquerable, and those roots cannot survive... And again, as the hymn "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" concludes, may we be "lost in wonder, love and praise."