Sunday, March 1, 2009

Demand #27: Your Righteousness Must Exceed That of the Pharisees, For Every Healthy Tree Bears Good Fruit

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. — Matt. 5:8

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body
be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. —
Matt. 5:28-30

Every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. — Matt. 7:17


From the workbook:

What is impurity according to Jesus? What is purity? How might these definitions change what you would otherwise think is impure? Would it reduce or enlarge the number of things that you could consider impure?

Describe how vigorously we must pursue purity.

What question has Piper been trying to answer throughout this book? What do you think his answer is thus far?

What does it mean to think of our assurance in terms of location and demonstration?

Examine the fruit of your life that you regularly and habitually bear. Is it good fruit? How would you know? On what basis should you judge good and bad fruit?

1 comment:

DannyLSmith said...

Clean the inside of the cup, not just the outside / change of heart / to will one thing....(see Piper's commentary).

This all draws me to the past few months and one of my many realizations; "how good we looked," Yet, for a long time I've known something was wrong.

This reading (Demand #27) brought to memory a lunch I had two to three years ago a semi-employee/acquaintance; I was searching out our inability to really work as a team; the company, the executive team, etc. His experience, I felt, would be valuable to uncovering the root of the problem. His answer - "people didn't know where the company was going. They didn't know the purpose." I reacted with "huh? You'r kidding?" And subsequently began a process of teaching our Mission, Vision, and Values.

He was wrong - we were like Pharisees; the outside looked good, but on the inside there were too many seperate agendas, and there was no way something that unhealthy was going to bear good fruit.