The Right Thing

‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil
against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in
heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Please note the word falsely. It is very important. It does not include people who don’t
want to talk about religion with you, people who want to listen to rock music even though
a Christian is in the room or people who have a different religion from you (and don’t
defer to your beliefs). Jesus is talking about serious stuff here, and not social annoyance.

Some day God is going to put you in a situation where you have to choose between doing
what other people want to do and what is right. You’re going to have to choose. So if
you choose wisely, and it backfires, if the whole weight of the system comes down on
you, that’s okay. There’s something better waiting for you. The world will be better
because of what you did.

Righteousness

'Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.'

He believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. It wasn’t anything else
he did after that. It wasn’t anything he before that. Traveling to Canaan, circumcision,
pretending his wife was his sister, bargaining with God for the lives of people in two
cities, or going up on a mountain to put a knife in his only son. No, it wasn’t any of those
things. It was that he believed God that was reckoned to him as righteousness.

It seems strange for me to say this, but we should all breathe a sigh of relief at that.
Thank God! I don’t have to get it right. I just have to believe. I’m not saying we
shouldn’t do anything, faith without works is dead after all, but at least those works don’t
always have to turn out like we’ve planned.