He (Jesus) said to him, " "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' May this set the tone for the love we celebrate everyday. Happy Valentine's Day!
Loving God, bless this dear reader with Your love; may they sense that they are not alone nor not loved; I pray this in Christ Jesus' precious name, amen.
Our text for today comes from Matthew 5:21 "You're familiar with the command to the ancients, 'Do not murder.' 22 I'm telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother 'idiot!' and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell 'stupid!' at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill. 23 "This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, 24 abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God. 25 "Or say you're out on the street and an old enemy accosts you. Don't lose a minute. Make the first move; make things right with him. After all, if you leave the first move to him, knowing his track record, you're likely to end up in court, maybe even jail. 26 If that happens, you won't get out without a stiff fine. 27 "You know the next commandment pretty well, too: 'Don't go to bed with another's spouse.' 28 But don't think you've preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices - they also corrupt. 29 "Let's not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here's what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. 30 And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump. 31 "Remember the Scripture that says, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him do it legally, giving her divorce papers and her legal rights'? 32 Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are 'legal.' Please, no more pretending. If you divorce your wife, you're responsible for making her an adulteress (unless she has already made herself that by sexual promiscuity). And if you marry such a divorced adulteress, you're automatically an adulterer yourself. You can't use legal cover to mask a moral failure. 33 "And don't say anything you don't mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. 34 You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, 'I'll pray for you,' and never doing it, or saying, 'God be with you,' and not meaning it. You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. 35 36 37 Just say 'yes' and 'no.' When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.
In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus readdresses the basic points of human relationships. Jesus stressed our need to get right with God, our need to get right with others, and our need to get right with ourselves. In this passage, Jesus is sharing what He had heard in his language, people telling others off in anger, sometimes not knowing or not caring that words can harm or kill. I heard a pastor recently preach something I had experienced and shared in some of my sermons that some of the deepest scars and wounds we carry are not visible because they are deep within our soul and spirit. Things someone said without thinking or with deep malicious intent. Things that sometimes parents do without thinking, not realizing that we have left a deep wound inside someone's life. The rest of the passage are instructions for dealing with others before we can say that we're right with God. Get control of your life, Jesus is saying, including your thoughts, and all will be well.
What is it that is ruining your life, spiritual or otherwise, that you need to control?
PRAYER: Loving God, I thank You for Jesus and His great example. May the words He shared with us in this passage speak to my heart in a helpful, uplifting way; and may my words today be those that build and encourage, heal and strengthen. Forgive me for the times I have maimed or killed someone with my words. I ask this in Christ Jesus' precious and powerful name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
Eradio Valverde
P.S. Thank you for your prayers and understanding for my time away. I'm still out of the office now doing work. Nellie and I had a great time with family and an early celebration of our anniversary which comes up on the 25th.
