This, from today's "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers, is a very good way to look at the Sermon on the Mount!
Blessed are… — Matthew 5:3-10
When we first read the statements of Jesus they seem wonderfully simple and unstartling, and they sink unobserved into our unconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes seem merely mild and beautiful precepts for all unworldly and useless people, but of very little practical use in the stern workaday world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the dynamite of the Holy Ghost. They explode, as it were, when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of these Beatitudes we say — “What a startling statement that is!” and we have to decide whether we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is the way the Spirit of God works. We do not need to be born again to apply the Sermon on the Mount literally. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is child’s play; the interpretation by the Spirit of God as He applies Our Lord’s statements to our circumstances is the stern work of a saint.
The teaching of Jesus is out of all proportion to our natural way of looking at things and it comes with astonishing discomfort to begin with. We have slowly to form our walk and conversation on the line of the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations: it is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is getting His way with us.
AMEN! So many believers over the years have tried not only to make themselves live by these precepts, but have emphatically insisted that others "toe the line" here, too! What this teaching was really all about is to show what the born again, Spirit-filled believer SHOULD look like to the world! BUT, it is NEVER automatic! It is also NEVER about us changing our behavior! It IS about our new life in Christ that is lived by the power of Holy Spirit Who lives IN US! Zechariah 4:6:Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
Remember that it is Holy Spirit Himself Who BEGAN His "good work" in us at the New Birth! HE will continue working that good work, if we allow Him to! Philippians 1:6:
6 And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you.
AMEN! All of our fleshly endeavors and mental gymnastics will never even begin to do what Holy Spirit can do in one moment when we are submitted to Him and in tune WITH Him! AMEN! Here is Hillsong with "Love Like Fire":
Shalom in Him!
