Friday, September 16
Behold
Matthew 5:21-26 NLT
“You have heard that the law of Moses says, ‘Do not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ But I say, if you are angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the high council. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.
“So if you are standing before the altar in the Temple, offering a sacrifice to God, and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there beside the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God. Come to terms quickly with your enemy before it is too late and you are dragged into court, handed over to an officer, and thrown in jail. I assure you that you won’t be free again until you have paid the last penny.”
Be Perfect
The greatest need of modern Christianity is the rediscovery of the Sermon on the Mount as the only practical way to live. Now we have an undertone of doubt and fear that it is not workable. We feel that it is trying to give human nature a bent that it will not take; it is trying to force something on us for which human nature is not made…Chesterton says that on the first reading you feel that it turns everything upside down, but the second time you read it you discover that it turns everything right side up.
E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of the Mount.