Saturday, January 26, 2008

Love or something like it

Today has been one dreary mess here. Great weather to sit inside and work on tomorrow's sermon. All week long I have been reading and rereading the passage in Matthew commonly known as the "beatitudes".

You remember - the "Blessed are you..." part.

The biggest challenge tomorrow will be trying to get the hearers to grasp just how revolutionary Jesus' words were.
We have such a tendency to take all the "heat" out of Scripture that would have scalded anyone who originally heard it.

One writer said that what Jesus said would have the same impact as the "new math" did in his days in school. He could remember sitting in class having just learned how to do "long division" and the teacher telling him that though he may have gotten the right answer, he was doing it all wrong. Maybe that guy has a real math phobia. Personally I think that's too weak.

Another said that Just using the word translated "blessed" would have had people scratching their heads. They believed gods were blessed, the rich were blessed, and the dead were blessed. But the poor, hungry, meek, merciful and the like? The world doesn't work that way. Didn't then, doesn't now.

True.

Unless Jesus shows up. Then the world as we know it yields to the One who created it.

So many people today are trusting in everything except the grace of God.

Love Him. Love Jesus. Trust Him. Trust Jesus. Don't focus on what's happening anywhere else except between you and Jesus. There's no safer place in the world than the center of the will of God.

Be blessed!

No comments:

Post a Comment