A Servant is not Greater than his Master, Nor....

Amen Isn't the Password

Today’s Text Comes from: Romans 2:13

For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

Today’s Notes from the Scriptures

Hearing and agreeing with Biblical truth has become an evangelical hobby. This is a dangerous place to live. When “truth” and “being right” become a hobby a natural pride will begin, much like a weed, to sprout, grow, and multiply around our skill at each of these.

The pride one feels in being good at something, that certain satisfaction that comes along with doing something well, will crop up in our spirituality. But this pride becomes more insidious because of its context: its exclusivity. Jesus Christ is indeed “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6),  the only path to the Father. But tragically, this beautiful truth can be used perversely in our minds!

It can become as much about the ability to win an argument as about an eternal soul being saved. Or about the “puffing up” of ever increasing knowledge, and the superiority that allows one to feel. It can foster an “us versus them” mentality, where we begin to look at all the evil “out there” and forget about our own shortcomings.

In short, it can create in us a false righteousness. When we become mere “hearers” of the gospel, we act as those Jews did, who were nothing but “hearers of the law”. We simply are substituting the atoning work of Jesus as our justification before a holy God for our knowledge of and agreement with the “truth”. “Amen”, isn’t the password into heaven, but let us “be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving [ourselves]” 

(James 1:22)

Remember Jesus’ instruction,

You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. (John 13:13-17)