Loving God of new challenges and opportunities, bless and guide this dear reader into an awesome adventure of faith this day; I pray in Christ Jesus' name, amen.
Our text for today comes from Matthew 23: 1 Now Jesus turned to address his disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them. 2 "The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God's Law. 3 You won't go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don't live it. They don't take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It's all spit-and-polish veneer. 4 "Instead of giving you God's Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn't think of lifting a finger to help. 5 Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. 6 They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, 7 preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called 'Doctor' and 'Reverend.' 8 "Don't let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. 9 Don't set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of 'Father'; you have only one Father, and he's in heaven. 10 And don't let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them - Christ. 11 "Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. 12 If you puff yourself up, you'll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you're content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty. (The Message)
Jesus is saying, Be careful what you preach and teach because you must live it. Jesus knew from hearing and seeing the religious authority figures of His day, that they taught what they knew well. What they didn't do well was to live their teachings. And worse because it was all head teachings, they did not know how to teach it from the heart. They had no personal relationship with God. Their teaching was all theory. And theory when not proven and lived, remains something unobtainable. They began to see their job as to teach the Don'ts instead of sharing God's love for humanity. Jesus came so that we could see God's love incarnate.
Our Life-Leader is Christ. In Jesus we have the perfect model of an obedient life surrended to God, a life that knew and lived the teachings and power behind the Law. We can do no wrong in following and surrendering our lives to Jesus Christ.
PRAYER: Loving God, let me surrender myself completely to You. May I see and seek in you my life's leading; be my Life-Leader. I ask this in Christ Jesus' precious and powerful name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
Eradio Valverde
