Enemies

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"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:43-45a)

The deepest question about anyone is this: what do you love? Every lie of Satan, in one way or another, is really an attempt to deflect our love away from its proper objects: God and our neighbors. The Scriptures rightly teach that if we would simply love God and love others, there would be no need for any other laws.

Our normal practice, however, is to love ourselves. Even our love for our friends and family is often self-serving: we love them for what we get from them. It is when we face enemies that the poverty of our love is really brought to the surface.

In Jesus' day, many people decided that He was the enemy and so they put Him to death on a cross. But at that very moment Jesus demonstrated what His Father is like more clearly than it had ever been seen before. He died on a cross because He loved the very people who were killing Him, the people whose sins made the cross necessary. Jesus, on the cross, prayed for the very people who were killing Him. That was yet another proof that He truly is the Son of God, for He was acting just as His Father in heaven does, with perfect love.

Starter Prayer:

Father, we thank you that you love your enemies, that you are gracious. We thank you that you sent Jesus, your only Son, to save us. We celebrate His amazing love for His enemies. We celebrate the cross, where the most wicked act in human history became the source of our salvation.

Amen.

Those Liars

But let your word 'yes' be 'yes,' and your 'no' be 'no.' Anything more than this is from the evil one. Matthew 5:37

Who comes to mind when you hear the word "liar?" Almost surely you think of someone other than yourself--liars are the people who tell really big lies, really hurtful lies, lies that are worse than what we tell. In this passage Jesus points us to the heart attitude that lying comes from. We have all kinds of different ways of manipulating people that, in our minds, are totally different from lying. We choose our words very carefully so as to say nothing literally false, while leaving impressions that are both false and self-serving.

In fact, as we consider the evils we have learned about in the past six weeks, we will see that lies, the lies of Satan, are at the root of many of the temptations we face. Satan promises that we would be happier if we had someone else's house, and so we covet. Satan tells us we have the right to be angry at someone who has wronged us, and so we give in to a vengeful anger.

We are both tempted by lies and tempted to lie in order to serve the deceitful desires of our hearts.

Starter Prayer:

Father, forgive us for the way we try to hide ourselves with words the way Adam and Eve hid themselves with fig leaves. Forgive us for the way we use our words to manipulate others. Your words are always true. Put a spirit of truth in our hearts.

Amen.

The Damning Look

“You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery. But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell!" (Matthew 5:27-30)

Hell. What an awful word. It puts knots in your stomach. It makes you flinch.

It is supposed to.

Jesus tells us that when we entertain lust, it is the first step onto a damning path. We're flirting with adultery. We're on a slippery slope with a really bad ending.

Jesus came to rescue us from that path. He came to show us a better way. We celebrate his divine rescue operation this week, often called "holy week." We praise Jesus for intervening in our lives that were heading toward destruction.

Knowing this, why would we flirt with sin, the sin that caused Christ's death? We shouldn't, and we don't have to. He daily gives us the power to say "no" to sin and "yes" to righteousness (Romans 6:12-14). Praise be to God! He is risen! Woohoo!

Starter Prayer

Jesus, You found me on a reckless path. You saved me from destruction. I'm thankful and so I daily offer You my eyes, my heart, and my life!

Amen

Really? Anger is a sin?

“You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, 'Do not murder,and whoever murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Fool!’ will be subject to the Sanhedrin. But whoever says, ‘You moron!’ will be subject to hellfire." (Matthew 5:21-22)

Boy, it is easy to see the sins of others. We're good at spotting those. But when we look in the mirror (not the mirror above our sink, I'm referring to the mirror of God's Word as in James 1:22-25), we find that sin is pretty easy to spot much closer to home.

Do you get angry? I'm not speaking of "righteous indignation;" I mean the kind of anger that causes you to speak harshly or cruelly to someone. Have you ever torn someone apart with words that are fueled by anger? Sometimes we regret the damage we inflict. Sometimes we feel smug and justified.

Jesus pulls no punches. That kind of anger is cause for judgment ... the punishment of hell.

But thanks be to God! This Friday we celebrate the ultimate Day of Atonement, the Day that Jesus died on the cross to absorb the punishment that we deserve for all our sins, including the sin of anger.

Starter prayer:

Jesus, how desperately I need You. How grateful I am that when you died on the cross, it was for ALL my sin - even the sin of my anger. Forgive me for my anger. Forgive me for inflicting pain on others because I was unable to contain my anger. I've been wrong - terribly wrong.

Thank you for the cross and for full forgiveness. Change me by Your grace, Lord!

Amen

We were to be salt

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It's no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled on by men. (Matthew 5:13)

Over the last several weeks in this blog, we have looked at the reality of sin in the world. We have seen how human life is devalued and how the church is persecuted. We have looked at the hurt caused by poverty and crime and by our violations of the Ten Commandments. In all of these things, we see the evidence of decay caused by sin.

Jesus called us to be the salt of the earth. Salt is a preservative. It is supposed to hold back the decay. As we look back at all of the pain sin causes, and we look forward to the cross of Christ on Friday, we should be moved to confessing our own sin. We were called to be salt, but many times we have failed to be salt. Jesus says that salt that doesn't preserve is useless. If we as individuals and the church collectively had been salt as we were commanded, we would see a much more God- honoring world than the one we live in.

Starter prayer:

Father, You have called us to be salt in the world, to work against the evil of sin through Your power. We confess to You how often we are so concerned about ourselves and our immediate friends and family that we don't even take time to pray against the destructive power of sin. We confess how often we do not act as those who are salt should. We ask for Your forgiveness and we remember that our sin is why Jesus had to die.

Amen.

Envy

Do not covet your neighbor's house. Do not covet your neighbor's wife, his male or female slave, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Exodus 20:17)

The 10th commandment leads us deeper still into the heart from which we sin against each other. People lie to each other because there is something they want that they think they can't get by legitimate means. People steal because they want the property of others. They have affairs because they want another person's spouse. Murders normally happen either because of anger caused by one of the above or by some other desire we have that is unfulfilled (James 4:1-2).

Some people think that Jesus was saying something radically new in the Sermon on the Mount (which we will look at next week) when he said that it is not enough to obey the commandments in your actions, you must obey them in your hearts. In fact, He was not saying something new, He was just restating what the 10th commandment already said: that God wants changed hearts, not just changed behavior.

Starter Prayer:

Father, you are all that we need, yet our lives are so easily consumed by the desire for what we do not have. Forgive us. Help us to be content with what we have because we have You and that is enough. Help us to rejoice in your goodness to others.

Lying

Do not give false testimony against your neighbor. (Exodus 20:16)

From some perspectives, the sins get smaller as we go through the Ten Commandments. Most people would say murder is worse than adultery, and that adultery is a bigger deal than theft, and theft is a bigger deal than telling a lie. We rank them this way because in our minds the sins become more frequent as you go down the list. Sins that we think we are more likely to commit are not as bad as sins we think other people will commit.

But from another perspective as we move down the list, we get closer and closer to the heart issue. Imagine a world without lying, and you will imagine a world where murders, adulterers, and thieves would almost certainly get caught, and know they will get caught. Deception is the tool that allows murder, adultery, and theft to do their damage, and it also reveals an underlying attitude they have in common. Other people are not to be respected; they are to be used. That self serving attitude is at the root of much sin. Jesus came to testify to the truth, in fact Jesus himself is the truth. In his life and death he comes to bring in a new age where every word is true because all of us have finally embraced grace.

Starter Prayer:

Father, you are true and your word is true. We pray that across our nation we would become known as people who speak the truth. Help your children to be salt and light by what we say, and rid us of the heart attitude that leads us to manipulate others.