SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/10/2020 8:42 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 “The Effect on Our View of
Ourselves”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
5:21-22
Message of the verse: “21 "You have
heard that the ancients were told, ’YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER’ and ’Whoever
commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ 22 "But I say to you that everyone who is
angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to
his brother, ’You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court;
and whoever says, ’You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the
fiery hell.”
Let
us begin by looking at 1 John 3:15 “Everyone who hates his brother is a
murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” It seems to me that John was listening to
Jesus’ sermon as he repeats what Jesus was saying here and includes it in his
first letter. John was showing that all
of us at one time or another has been very angry with someone and that means
that we are all murders in our hearts, which is what Jesus is looking at in the
Sermon on the Mount. Now we can believe
that not many who heard this sermon became believers and so the term “brother”
is used in a broad ethnic sense of meaning any other Jewish person in that culture.
What
did Jesus do here? Well He strips away
every vestige of self-righteousness.
Jesus sweeps away two things here.
First the rabbinical rubbish of tradition, and then He also swept aside
the self-justification that is common to all of us, making His indictment
total.
John
MacArthur writes “In the spring of 1931 one of the most notorious criminals of
that day was captured. Known as Two-gun
Crowley, he had brutally murdered a great many people, including at least one
policeman. It is said that when he
finally was captured in his girlfriend’s apartment after a gun battle, the
police found a blood-spattered note on him that read, ‘Under my coat is a weary
heart, but a kind one, one that would do nobody any harm.’ Even the worst of men try to exonerate
themselves. Such obvious self-deceit as
that of Crowley’s seems absurd, yet that is exactly the attitude the natural
man has of himself. ‘I may have done
some bad things,’ he thinks, ‘but down deep I’m not really bad.’”
As
we look at the above story we can be sure that in essence, that was the
self-righteous attitude of the scribes and the Pharisees, as it is of many
people today. If we compare ourselves
with a blood-thirsty criminal that would make us very good in our own
minds. Let us look at the story of the
Pharisee in the Temple from Luke 18:9-14 with the emphases on verse
eleven: “9 And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in
themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: 10 “Two
men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax
collector. 11 “The
Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ’God, I thank You that I am not
like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax
collector. 12 ’I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ 13 "But
the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up
his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ’God, be merciful to
me, the sinner!’ 14 "I tell you, this man went to his house justified
rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he
who humbles himself will be exalted.’”
MacArthur adds “What Jesus says in the present passage is that we are
just like those other people. Even if we
do not take someone else’s life, even if we never physically assault another
person, we are guilty of murder.”
Even
in our modern day life of having Sociologists and psychologists they report that
hatred brings a person closer to murder than any other emotion. Hatred is but an extension of anger. Anger will lead to hatred, which then can
lead to murder—in the heart if not in action.
Anger and hatred are so powerful of an emotion that they can destroy the
person who harbors them.
MacArthur
concludes “Jesus’ main point here, and through verse 48, is that even the best
of people, in their hearts, are sinful and so are in the same boat with the
worst of people. Not to consider the
state of hart is not to consider that which the Lord holds to be the
all-important measure of true guilt.
“In
verse 22 Jesus gives three examples that show the divine definition of
murder: being ‘angry’ with another
person, saying ‘Raca’ to him, and calling him a ‘fool.’”
The
word “raca” has the following meaning:
“1) empty, i.e. a senseless, empty
headed man
2) a term of reproach used among the
Jews in the time of Christ”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: There is no doubt that anger can be a problem
in my life and I suppose if others look at these two verses they will see the
same thing that I see.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I want to learn the lessons that the lady at
our church learned from the Lord as she ministers to pregnant women at an
abortion clinic, where she went in their very angry, but God taught her to
control her anger so that she can minister to those ladies.
8/10/2020 9:21 AM
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