The Absurd Irony of Assumptions
In Matthew 7 we learn that Jesus taught us that the path that leads to eternal life is hard to find, and that only a few will even find it. And as people of faith we are no doubt familiar with that passage, but how often do we experience a moment of pause and carefully consider what Jesus is actually teaching us about the path that we are presently on in real-time?
For example, in that passage Jesus certainly is not teaching us to assume that we are indeed on the path that leads to righteousness or to develop an impermeable form of calloused and arrogant reasoning that suggests that we have ever found it. Instead we are warned in that passage and throughout the Sermon on the Mount that as people of faith we have a tendency to personally slip into delusions of grandeur and absurd assumptions of self-righteousness that makes it impossible for us to either understand or apply the Word of God in context.
But rather than allowing God’s Word to really soak in such a way that helps us to recognize the error of our own ways, many of us are ironically driven by a wildly unreasonable, illogical, and inappropriate assumption that a lesson about our real-time tendency to instinctively join the crowd in a journey down the broad path that leads straight to hell — cannot possibly be applicable to our own day to day walk. So as we approach Easter and consider why Jesus died on the cross, let us also consider that He taught us to carefully consider the absurd irony embedded within the assumptions that we make about the quality and trajectory of our own walk today. In doing so let’s also study the passage below and identify real-time examples of how our walk down the path that we are currently on manifests the highlighted behaviors in the graphic below and focus on getting the “mote, wood, or plank” out of our own eye first. [ Matthew 7:1-5 ]
Let us Pray:
Heavenly Father, thank you for reminding us of our own spiritual poverty before You, and for giving us another day to focus on how lost we are and how far we have drifted away from You. Often times we are so busy looking at the spiritual condition of others that we ignore our own spiritual deficiencies. Dear Lord help us to see the error of our own ways, and to recognize the absurd irony embedded within the assumptions that we make. After all nothing is hidden from You. You know who we are, and You know who we aren’t. You know our thoughts, You see everything we do, and You hear everything we say. Help us to acknowledge the glaring contradictions and hypocrisy looking back at us in the mirror first as You have instructed. Amen.
Have a Blessed Day! 🙂
jay