What Do You Love More: Being Right or, Being Made Right?

I read recently on a young man’s blog: “It’s better to do right than to be right”. It’s an ideal that certainly contradicts human nature; and that didn’t go unobserved by our Lord. His most scathing critizisms were aimed at men that said all the right things, but lacked the fruits of love. He called them beautiful whitewashed tombs, not because they were caring men that aided widows and orphans in their need yet were unclear about some religious questions; but because of the opposite: Pious, praying in public, fasting and careful to observe to the letter their duty to honour God, these men would steal from widows and send orphans away to beg. They believed they were justified in whatever they did because of what they believed.
I have been spiritually brought up in the evangelical tradition. I’m not questioning the teachings I’ve received. I am however, a bit wearied by those who place so much importance on being right (what they believe), and little thought to doing right. I think that some of us Evangelicals are on thin ice. When pride in being right blinds our hearts to the Love of God in the most “unlikely” places and people, then we are in danger of missing the real point? Aren’t we?  A very well known and respected Christian writer encouraged me to publish this blog post and I’m grateful to him for taking the time to read it.

Matthew 23:25-28

• vae vobis scribae et Pharisaei hypocritae quia mundatis quod de foris est calicis et parapsidis intus autem pleni sunt rapina et inmunditia
• Pharisaee caece munda prius quod intus est calicis et parapsidis ut fiat et id quod de foris est mundum
• vae vobis scribae et Pharisaei hypocritae quia similes estis sepulchris dealbatis quae a foris parent hominibus speciosa intus vero plena sunt ossibus mortuorum et omni spurcitia
• sic et vos a foris quidem paretis hominibus iusti intus autem pleni estis hypocrisi et iniquitate

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
You shall know a tree by its fruits; not by what it says, but by what it does.
James 1:27  religio munda et inmaculata apud Deum et Patrem haec est visitare pupillos et viduas in tribulatione eorum inmaculatum se custodire ab hoc saeculo
“Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this : to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
James 2:14-20

• unusquisque vero temptatur a concupiscentia sua abstractus et inlectus
• dein concupiscentia cum conceperit parit peccatum peccatum vero cum consummatum fuerit generat mortem
• nolite itaque errare fratres mei dilectissimi
• omne datum optimum et omne donum perfectum desursum est descendens a Patre luminum apud quem non est transmutatio nec vicissitudinis obumbratio
• voluntarie genuit nos verbo veritatis ut simus initium aliquod creaturae eius
• scitis fratres mei dilecti sit autem omnis homo velox ad audiendum tardus autem ad loquendum et tardus ad iram
• ira enim viri iustitiam Dei non operatur

“What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works. “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?”
Useless. As useless as a clanging cymbal?   We can see that faith without works (of love) is useless. I have a question for those who enjoy being “right”, who love knowing that their doctrine is correct: Is love without faith useless?  Or, more clearly put: Is an expression of human love an abomination in the sight of God when it is not accompanied by  “being right”;  evangelically, or otherwise, being able to confess with one’s mouth all the correct creeds?
If someone came up to you and said: “I’m not sure about Jesus. Or God. Or the Church.  In fact, I don’t know what I believe, but I do feel that God, whomever he is, would want me to be as kind and loving as I may be, and that he will decide in the end who was loving and who was not (in respect to eternal judgement).”  What would you say?  I know I would have said what I’ve been taught:  It’s more important to Be Right than to Do Right. In other words:  God will forgive the Christian that hypocritically lives a self-serving life, ignoring the needs of those who are suffering and are within his reach and power to help because such a man believes the gospel and confesses his dependance upon the Lord, and by doing so is made righteous.  I would have used Romans 10:9 as the acid test of whether a person is forgiven or not.  Others may use other tests: Is the person baptized? Has he participated in the sacraments?  But really, all of our tests exclude Love.  I realize another thing:  My tests had excluded scripture.

Matthew 7:21-23

• non omnis qui dicit mihi Domine Domine intrabit in regnum caelorum sed qui facit voluntatem Patris mei qui in caelis est ipse intrabit in regnum caelorum
• multi dicent mihi in illa die Domine Domine nonne in nomine tuo prophetavimus et in tuo nomine daemonia eiecimus et in tuo nomine virtutes multas fecimus
• et tunc confitebor illis quia numquam novi vos discedite a me qui operamini iniquitatem

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles ?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”
What would you say to someone who declared: “I am not convinced that Jesus is the Son of God, but truly believe that if there is a God, he would want us to be loving, and that’s how I try to be!” ?  Well, I bet you can think of alot of answers.  And if you believe those answers, you will even feel an anxiousness for the lost soul and make attempts like I have, to convince them that the Love they think they are seeking, is actually angry with them for their lack of faith (though patient until they repent) but if they do not repent, they will be eternally damned. And though I feel sorry for them now, I will be relieved of that burden when I’m in heaven myself, and agree with God that such a non-believer should be damned.  But hold on a minute.  They said they do believe.  In love.  Nameless, (does that sound familiar, old testament buffs?) though, in their ignorance, yet they express their worship of Love and even say they commit their souls to the judgement of Love.  But they are speaking words against Jesus….   What would He have to say about that?
Matthew 12:31-32

• ideo dico vobis omne peccatum et blasphemia remittetur hominibus Spiritus autem blasphemia non remittetur
• et quicumque dixerit verbum contra Filium hominis remittetur ei qui autem dixerit contra Spiritum Sanctum non remittetur ei neque in hoc saeculo neque in futuro

“”Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.”
The Holy Spirit of God.  The sin mentioned shouldn’t be a mystery. God is Love.  Whoever decides in his life to utterly refuse Love, that person is refusing Life Himself.  I wonder if heaven will be home to many who say: “When Lord? When did we see you hungry?…. we weren’t even looking for you.”  I also wonder if heaven will notice the absence of those men that thought they were so right, yet scorned Love- when they saw it in others or in the Holy Spirit.
In case anyone should think I’ve fallen from faith, I don’t think so.  I believe in Jesus, the Son of the Living God; in Romans 1:9 and in the Apostles Creed.  I believe that becoming a disciple of Jesus does not mean that God now loves me.  It means that I can now love Him more fully, with understanding and serve him more completely and in freedom knowing he has forgiven my sin.  After all, don’t we love him because he first loved us?