NOTES for Luk 6:46-7:1

When the Lord tells us that it is useless to call upon Him without doing what He says, when He tells us that everyone is known by the fruit they bear, this reveals His utmost strictness. We are not accustomed to this. For us it is often most important that a person be good; as for the fact that he is unsuccessful and has accomplished nothing special, we are often quite ready to forgive that. Indeed, the opposite is more likely: if a person is not very kind, his real achievements even irritate us and seem somehow out of place. Yet we should accept such strictness from the Lord with joy, because it gives us confidence that if we follow these words, we are firm as rock and nothing can shake us.

But even this is not the main thing. The main thing lies in our love. Love is an astonishingly creative feeling. Recall being in love with another person. It seems that you could run around the whole world three times to find what your beloved needs. Our love for God should be just like that. We should burn with the desire to do everything for Him, to do everything as He wants and commands. If we have this feeling, akin to passionate love, and if we do not allow it to fade, we are like the person who built his house upon rock.