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Continually in this chapter, Jesus looks to the condition of
the heart as opposed to the person’s
conditions in this world.
He chastised the Pharisees for caring more about their rules than about human suffering. They’d rather a person starve or remain
physically handicapped another day than that their Sabbath rule was broken!
Jesus spoke the beatitudes to the crowd, not speaking of
physical poverty, but of spiritual
hunger. He warned them that the world wouldn’t like their allegiance to
Him, and when they faced the world’s
anger, it should inspire joy because they’d know they were being obedient to
Him.
He wanted them to have charity in their hearts – giving to
those who couldn’t give back rather than exchanging giving with those who could.
He wanted them to examine their own lives, removing sin they found, rather than judging others for
minor things.
He summed it up by saying, “Good people bring good things out of the good they stored in their hearts. But evil people bring evil things out of the evil
they store in their hearts. People speak
the things that are in their hearts.”
Father, I don’t want to harbor any evil in my heart. Help
me to examine what I say and do to make certain that my words and actions give evidence of Your love in my heart and
not anything else. Show me anything that
I am missing, just as Jesus warned His followers to remove the plank from their
own eyes before trying to remove a piece of dust from their friend’s eye!
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
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