day no. 14,918: preaching and teaching Jesus from reasoning

Acts 24:24-25
After some days Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, and he sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus. 25 And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed

Paul preached to Felix about three things:
1) righteousness
2) self-control
3) coming judgment

There are two things we all know:
1) there really is a right and wrong
2) we have done wrong

For example, we all know that lying is wrong and yet we all must admit we have lied.

We all subscribe to the idea that righteousness is required to be accepted by God. But we know we do not meet the standard of righteousness required. So we make the grade a bell curve instead of a pass/fail. Righteousness proper demands 100% adherence. Righteousness popular demands you land somewhere on the plus side of 50%. As long as you are better than most, you will be approved of by God who knows you tried your best and that perfection was out of your reach.

We all know that there are parts of ourselves at war with what you hold as ideal. In order to live according to our ideals, we must have self-control. There will come a time where we are tempted to lie if we hold the truth as an ideal. There will come a time where we are tempted to cheat if we hold integrity and fidelity as an ideal. There is something in us that wants to do the opposite of what we want. We have conflicting desires which require us be self-controlled and say, "No," when we want to say, "Yes," and to say, "Yes," when we want to say, "No." If we do not, we will do things that war against our priorities and ideals.

We all know that judgment is coming for what we have done. We know the things we approve of and pursue and the things we despise and disapprove of will be weighed on the scales of God's justice. We know there is a future vindication for someone coming and we do our best to convince ourselves that our causes and failures will be justified and that our enemies' will not. 

Paul appealed to standards, procedures and evaluations in sharing the Good News of the gift of God in Christ Jesus. We should take notes and share the same message with those God has placed before us.