SERIOUS STUFF
I have found myself spending considerable time reading the "Sermon on the Mount" lately, Mathew 5,6, &7.
It includes some serious teachings on how to live the Christian life. It seems to me that most preachers and teachers fail to give these teachings much time these days, I wonder why?
Last week while on vacation a couple of states west of where we live, I delivered a message to a church on Sunday morning on one of Jesus' tough teachings, forgiveness.
We find that his teaching on this subject is quite clear in the prayer that he taught his followers that we call the Lord's Prayer. We can rattle this prayer off so easily we don't even have to think about the words.
Mathew 6:7-13 includes the Lord's Prayer but verse 7 warns us against babbling words that we aren't serious about.
Verse 12 petitions the Father to forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
What Jesus is really saying here is that our Father will forgive us our sins to the same extent that we forgive others when they sin against us.
In the start of Mathew 7 Jesus gives a similar teaching when he says that we are not to judge others.
What Jesus is teaching here is that if we find a tiny fault with our brother, in the words of Jesus a tiny speck of sawdust in his eye, we are able to see this speck in our brother's eye only because we have a similar fault, or in Jesus' words, a huge plank in our own eye.
If I can find a fault in my brother's life, it is because I have the same fault only several times bigger in my own.
Serious stuff.
See you next week!
I have found myself spending considerable time reading the "Sermon on the Mount" lately, Mathew 5,6, &7.
It includes some serious teachings on how to live the Christian life. It seems to me that most preachers and teachers fail to give these teachings much time these days, I wonder why?
Last week while on vacation a couple of states west of where we live, I delivered a message to a church on Sunday morning on one of Jesus' tough teachings, forgiveness.
We find that his teaching on this subject is quite clear in the prayer that he taught his followers that we call the Lord's Prayer. We can rattle this prayer off so easily we don't even have to think about the words.
Mathew 6:7-13 includes the Lord's Prayer but verse 7 warns us against babbling words that we aren't serious about.
Verse 12 petitions the Father to forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
What Jesus is really saying here is that our Father will forgive us our sins to the same extent that we forgive others when they sin against us.
In the start of Mathew 7 Jesus gives a similar teaching when he says that we are not to judge others.
What Jesus is teaching here is that if we find a tiny fault with our brother, in the words of Jesus a tiny speck of sawdust in his eye, we are able to see this speck in our brother's eye only because we have a similar fault, or in Jesus' words, a huge plank in our own eye.
If I can find a fault in my brother's life, it is because I have the same fault only several times bigger in my own.
Serious stuff.
See you next week!
posted by Jim Burton at 8:12 AM
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