Matthew 7:13–14

May 18, 2012 in Gospel of Matthew with 0 Comments

13 “You can enter God’s King­dom only through the nar­row gate. The high­way to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. 14 But the gate­way to life is very nar­row and the road is dif­fi­cult, and only a few ever find it.

The Nar­row Way

With these words, Jesus begins to close the “Ser­mon on the Mount”. For the past two chap­ters, he has been speak­ing about what it means to live life as a cit­i­zen of the King­dom of Heaven. In other words, life as a Christ fol­lower. Now, he begins to wrap up his mes­sage, and he does so by point­ing out what would have been obvi­ous to his lis­ten­ers: his way is not the most com­mon way.

I love hang­ing around peo­ple who have just begun a jour­ney with Christ. Their excite­ment and joy over dis­cov­er­ing that God loves them exactly as they are is intense. Every­thing is new, fresh, and full of won­der. Often, they will say to me, “Why doesn’t every­one fol­low Christ?” Of course, there is no easy answer to that question.
Some don’t fol­low Christ because they haven’t heard the mes­sage of his love. It’s up to us to share the mes­sage of grace with those we know who haven’t heard. After all, if we don’t tell them, who will?
But oth­ers don’t fol­low Christ because it demands sub­mit­ting to God. He’s God, I’m not. It means giv­ing up one’s own desires, pas­sions, and dreams and choos­ing to fol­low what God has for us. In the end, it’s the best thing one can do, but for many, the cost seems to great.
Jesus was narrow-minded. He refused to allow peo­ple to come to him on their terms … their way. The path­way to expe­ri­enc­ing the King­dom of Heaven has only one entrance. It passes through the death and res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus. Every other way leads to destruc­tion. Every other way leaves us empty, frus­trated, and alone. And yet, over and over, I see peo­ple try so many other ways to expe­ri­ence all that Jesus promises we can expe­ri­ence as cit­i­zens of God’s kingdom.
Some don’t like how black and white Jesus makes this. In the end, too bad. God isn’t look­ing for our input on how we come to him. If you want to enjoy the bless­ings and promises God invites us to expe­ri­ence, we must do so on his terms. Period.
My prayer: God, thank you for pro­vid­ing the way back into rela­tion­ship with you. Thank you that I can expe­ri­ence every­thing even though I can bring noth­ing to the equa­tion. Yes, the way is nar­row, but it is also amaz­ing. I choose the nar­row path. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

Matthew 7:12

May 17, 2012 in Gospel of Matthew with 0 Comments

12 “Do to oth­ers what­ever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.

The Golden Rule

It might come as a sur­prise to some of you to learn that the “Golden Rule” can be found in the teach­ings of most major reli­gions. How­ever, it is usu­ally recorded in the neg­a­tive. In other words, in most reli­gions, the rule is stated this way: “Don’t do to oth­ers what you don’t want done to you.” 

So, when Jesus quoted it from the pos­i­tive per­spec­tive, his lis­ten­ers would have taken notice. 

I love how Jesus does that. And then, he does some­thing incred­i­ble … he sug­gests that this one state­ment sums up all the laws of the Old Tes­ta­ment. Over 600 dif­fer­ent laws, and Jesus says you can some them up by sim­ply doing for oth­ers what you’d hope they’d do for you.

Could you imag­ine if peo­ple lived their lives this way? If we actu­ally treated peo­ple the way we’d hope to be treated? Every­thing would change.
  • That guy you judged with­out ever get­ting to know him? You’d hope some­one who take time to learn about you and give you the ben­e­fit of the doubt. 
  • That home­less guy who smells bad? You’d hope some­one would feed you, help you, treat you like a human being.
  • That per­son hold­ing up the line in the gro­cery story? You’d hope some­one would under­stand the hell you’ve faced that day, and how you were dis­tracted by your cir­cum­stances and for­got to have your money ready at the cashier. 
In other words, if we treated peo­ple the way we hope they’d treat us, we would be slower to respond and quicker to learn from them.
My prayer: Lord, it seems so sim­ple, and yet it is so hard to live life this way. I need your help today. I choose to treat every per­son the way I hope oth­ers would treat me today. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

Matthew 7:7–11

May 16, 2012 in Gospel of Matthew with 0 Comments

7 “Keep on ask­ing, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seek­ing, and you will find. Keep on knock­ing, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For every­one who asks, receives. Every­one who seeks, finds. And to every­one who knocks, the door will be opened.

9 “You parents—if your chil­dren ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? 10 Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! 11 So if you sin­ful peo­ple know how to give good gifts to your chil­dren, how much more will your heav­enly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.

Effec­tive Prayer

Prayer can be a con­fus­ing thing to some peo­ple. After all, there are so many facets to a healthy prayer life. If you attend our “Dis­cov­er­ing Spir­i­tual Matu­rity” class, you’ll learn about some of the aspects of prayer. Things like wor­ship, con­fes­sion, inter­ces­sion, and dec­la­ra­tion. On the sur­face, it can seem so complicated. 

But when you really sim­plify it, prayer is com­mu­ni­ca­tion with God. Think of it the way a child inter­acts with his par­ents. In a good, healthy home, a son inter­acts in a very spe­cial way with his dad (I rec­og­nize that some read­ing this, includ­ing me, didn’t have that kind of rela­tion­ship with dad. How­ever, we all know how it should be). In some ways, the son idol­izes dad, and approaches him with a sense of rev­er­ence. Dad can do any­thing. Yet, at the same time, the son comes to dad with a total aban­don­ment and love, believ­ing he is fully pro­tected and secure in the pres­ence of Dad. 

That is how we should approach God. And yet, we often make it so com­pli­cated. We pos­ture our­selves, speak in a “spir­i­tual” voice, and try to impress God with our words and deeds. And yet, God sees through all of it and sim­ply smiles.

God wants to bless us. There are times when I think of some­thing my kids would enjoy, and I just go out and do it. It’s unex­pected to them and the sur­prised joy their expe­ri­ence makes my heart sing. But, there are other times when they will come to me with a request. I eval­u­ate what they are ask­ing for, con­sider whether it really is best for them, and when­ever pos­si­ble, love to meet their request. I enjoy bless­ing my chil­dren with what they ask of me.

God does to. Of course, he is wise enough to know when answer yes to our request would not be the best thing for us. But, he does take delight in bless­ing us with the lit­tle things in life. So, why be afraid to ask? In today’s pas­sage, Jesus encour­ages us to ask. It’s not a bother to God when his chil­dren come to him and say, “Daddy, can I …?” He delights in that beau­ti­ful relationship.

My prayer: Father, it’s incred­i­ble that you take notice of the small things in my life. With all that goes on around the world, you are able to zero in on a father/child rela­tion­ship with me. Amaz­ing. Today, I do the same. I focus in on that beau­ti­ful rela­tion­ship with you. And yes, I ask for … Amen.”

Until tomor­row
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