August 31, 2025 - 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.  In short compass, has anyone ever, in all of history, treated so comprehensively and so effectively the major concerns of the human heart and life?

The New York Times best seller lists tends to be loaded with advice books.  Wow, one could spend lots of money and many, many hours reading, all in the attempt to better one’s 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!

Purer in heart, O God,

Help me to be;

May I devote my life

Wholly to Thee.

Watch Thou my wayward feet,

Guide me with counsel sweet;

Purer in heart,

Help me to be.   -- Fannie E. Davison (1873)