August 25, 2024 - Matthew 5-7

The Sermon on the Mount.  Just amazing teaching!  The Beatitudes.  Salt and light.  Righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees.  Anger, lust, divorce, oaths, retaliation, love toward enemies, hypocrisy, giving to the needy, prayer, fasting, the heart's true condition shown in laying up treasures, anxiety, treatment and judgment of others, trusting the Father, healthy and diseased fruit, false profession, and real wisdom.  So briefly, has anyone ever, in all of history, treated so comprehensively and so effectively the major concerns of the human heart and life?

Bookstores and best seller lists of books supposedly helping us to be better persons and to have happier life.  Here’s the big difference, though, it seems to me.  These contemporary authors treat stuff (often inconsequential stuff) largely from a behavioral perspective, i.e., if you act like such and such you will get a new and better outcome than before.  In other words, they tend to “wash the outside of the cup.”  On the other hand, Jesus not only addresses the most basic of human concerns, but his gospel actually changes us from within so that right actions and thinking become natural to us rather than something we’re constantly having to try to produce by outward actions.  All the best selling authors in the world cannot offer that sort of help!

Breathe on me, Breath of God,

fill me with life anew,

that I may love the way you love,

and do what you would do.

Breathe on me, Breath of God,

until my heart is pure,

until my will is one with yours,

to do and to endure.

Breathe on me, Breath of God,

so shall I never die,

but live with you the perfect life

for all eternity.   -- Edwin Hatch (1878)