June 29th

June 29^th – Matthew 5:17-30 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205:17-30&version=NLT)

Law, anger, and lust; three things (among many others) that often become taboo topics even when brought up among a church family.
Law, I am admittedly not going to comment on, only because I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, and really the law is God’s word, not mine, so if anyone’s curious about that, I’d go right back to Him for that – I don’t want to be messing any up. Though I will say that it is points out that saying Jesus came to complete them doesn’t excuse us from them. Murder, or even disobedience towards your parents is not suddenly excusable because Jesus came – the laws are still laws.

Anger. Well, I think this is one that I talked about in a previous post, where Jesus became angry in the temple when he saw that it had been turned into a market, essentially. Now, here, Jesus is saying that anger towards another person is like having murdered them – he levels them out and says they have the same consequences, essentially making them seem like one-and-the-same. He actually insists that (since this was back when they still made sacrifices) they don’t sacrifice unless/until they don’t have anger in their hearts against anyone and they don’t have any business with someone they know that they haven’t settled. Jesus was angry, though, right? Well, different types of anger. Jesus’ was righteous, but ours is often selfish. Also, when someone else has something against us, it’s not because we wronged God, but because we wronged them, which means we need to ensure we are truly sorry for that. If we only sinned against God, then we take it up with Him. However, we need to focus on ensuring that we are not a cause of anger, and that our own is only righteous.

Lust… this is a topic I don’t know that I can say too much on. Everyone struggles with it differently. But make no mistake that I think everyone does struggle with it. We just all struggle in our owns ways. Some people are also more tempted in this area of sin than others. This is why I’m hesitant to say too much on it – I don’t want anyone thinking that I would think less of them just because they struggled with pornography instead of just being a compulsive liar or something, for example. All sin is sin in God’s eyes - I will not judge anyone’s area of struggle just because it may not be mine. However, I will say, as I said before, I think everyone struggles with lust in some way or another. Some people are just far more tempted than others, and some are able to resist because they are not strongly tempted. Jesus speaks very strongly on this matter, saying if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. He says losing one part is better than losing it all to hell. Now, I’m not going to attempt to make any comments on how literally or metaphorically this is all meant to be taken. I just want to say the extremes are a matter of urgency and attempt to emphasize a point. Jesus knew that this area of sin is one that I can be fallen into quickly and easily, but is incredibly hard to get out of. It’s better to stop it right away, even if it only seems minor, before it grows and becomes all-but-impossible to get rid of. If you don’t pull a weed before it grows, when you try and pull it out after it’s grown you’ll wish you pulled it out when it was still small. Sin is a lot like that. So just be careful in the area of lust. I think it’s basically impossible to avoid, but do try your best to all the same.

 

That will be all! God bless! Shalom!

 

(Yes, this is late. I was away and had no internet so I did this and typed it and just had to wait to post it)