Peculiarly His Own

Peculiarly His Own

Saturday of the First Week of Lent

“Today you are making this agreement with the LORD: he is to be your God, and you are to walk in his ways and observe his statutes, commandments, and decrees, and to hearken to his voice. And today the LORD is making this agreement with you: you are to be a people peculiarly his own, as he promised you; and provided you keep all his commandments, he will then raise you high in praise and renown and glory above all other nations he has made, and you will be a people sacred to the LORD, your God, as he promised.” Deuteronomy 26:17-19

Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” Matthew 5:43-45

Piety

Peace waits among the hills;
I have drunk peace,
Here, where the blue air fills
The great cup of the hills,
And fills with peace.

Between the earth and sky,
I have seen the earth
Like a dark cloud go by,
And fade out of the sky;
There was no more earth.

Light fills the hills with God,
Wind with his breath,
And here, in his abode,
Light, wind, and air praise God,
And this poor breath.
Arthur Symons

Study

You have heard that it was said…

Jesus turned many of the expectations of the people upside down.  People said (and say) a lot of things that might be popular.  We are not expected to follow the popular path.  Whenever doing so, the aim was always to continue to fulfill the covenant promised in the Hebrew Bible. While Jesus changes the perspective on many things, the one thing he never changed was the Covenant. He was the actual fulfillment of God’s portion.

Christians, however, are not to be common.   We MUST be peculiarly his own.  Abnormal from human standards because we are asked to follow the Lord’s rules.  Those differences will be noticeable in the world for anyone who looks close enough to notice. They should not detect us because of any religious practice or public demonstration of faith. Instead, they should see us because we are markedly different from others in how we behave according to the be-attitudes.

If we love God, God will love us back.  True enough.  But if God loves us, will we love God back?  Maybe not always so true.  If we love our friends, they will love us back.  True enough.  But if we love our enemies, will our enemies love us back?  Maybe not always true. 

Sometimes, the scales of justice tip in our favor.  Sometimes, they might not.  However, the situations still call for our reactions to be based on the perfect love we learn from God, not our own imperfection.

Notice that Jesus did not ask us to be slightly in favor of the covenant.  He asked us to go all in in this conclusion to Matthews (perhaps) most famous chapter.

Action

Jesus does not ask us to behave like everyone else. If he was the counter-revolutionary, he asks the same of us. So, let us turn to Jesus this season and ask him: “Lord, make me peculiarly your own.”