Hope Discovery of the Day:

Doing beyond what is expected helps to gear our mindset beyond limitations.

Scripture of the Day:

Jeremiah 22:15

“Does it make you any more of a king that you outstrip everyone else in building with cedar? Just think about your father. He was content that he had food and drink. He did what was just and right. So things went well with him.”

Jeremiah 22:3

“The LORD says, “Do what is just and right. Deliver those who have been robbed from those who oppress them. Do not exploit or mistreat foreigners who live in your land, children who have no fathers, or widows. Do not kill innocent people in this land.”

Deuteronomy 6:18

“Do what is right and good in the LORD’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors.”

Doing what is right is commanded throughout Scripture. Not just as a good work, but a command of what God expects. All too often in our humanness, we want to define what is right to our own advantage. Perhaps we set the boundary lines of what is right and wrong a little more easily for ourselves and harder for others.

It’s hard doing what is right. Our flesh would rather do whatever it wants to do and have that be acceptable as “right”. But we forget that God has a beautiful motivation in telling us to do what is right – it is for our benefit. The benefits of obedience far outweigh any temporal gain from “doing right” our own way.

We consider ourselves good if we do not set out to “do wrong”, kinda grade ourselves on the curve. When we try to determine what we can get away with, we are asking the wrong questions, though. God’s boundaries lie in pleasant places and doing what is right is the minimal expectation for a believer.

Once we look into God’s perfect law and see what He defines as “doing right”, we are humbled greatly. Doing what is right is not merely a checklist and an attempt at us trying to live up to the law. Doing what is right should burn within our souls as disciples of God. But more than that, we should desire to exceed the motivation of being “just enough” and go beyond the right.

Don’t get me wrong – I am not talking about legalistic measures like the Pharisees imposed – adding to God’s law. I am more talking about a mentality. Maybe instead of asking what we “have” to do, consider what we “get” to do.

When God says to not exploit foreigners, perhaps we can consider how to bless them, instead. When we refrain from gossiping about others who have wronged us, perhaps we can consider how to speak kindly about them. Wow. Think of how we could turn things around in this world by doing the opposite response to a reaction of the flesh – going beyond merely refraining from evil and glorifying God by shining His love in dark places.

Doing beyond what is expected helps to gear our mindset beyond limitations. We are free to think higher rather than just what we can and cannot do. This week, consider who God can have you impact by going beyond the right. Their life and your life just might change in radical ways.

LORD, thank You for Your holy standard. Help us to honor Your commands by rejoicing in them and living by them.