Friday, April 11, 2008

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY: Matthew 18:6-9

PSALM OF THE WEEK: Psalm 131

HYMN OF THE DAY: #511 “Strong, Gentle Children” [no link available]

 

VERSE OF THE DAY: “If your hand or foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away; it is better to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into the eternal fire.” Matthew 18:8 NRSV

 

PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THE ABOVE VERSE LITTERALLY!  Jesus does not want you to go around cutting off your body parts.  He was talking to people who believed, in his era, that lameness or blindness was a sign that a person had sinned and was being punished by God.  It is not.  The “eternal fire” is.  He was saying that we should try to avoid temptations.  Sometimes people confuse the temptation with the falling for the temptation.  Resisting the temptation is what Jesus was referring to.  If you put yourself in the position where you know you will be tempted, you run the risk of failing the temptation.  We are all tempted.  Even Jesus was tempted (Matthew 4:1-11 & Matthew 27:41-44, for example).  My father always told me not to go looking for trouble because there was enough trouble looking for me anyway.  It is true.  We have enough trouble with the temptations that come looking for us so it is silly to go deliberately looking for them, and even worse to try to get others tempted (see verse 7).  The easiest sin to avoid is the one we are never tempted by.  No wonder Jesus told us to avoid all the temptations we can.

 

PRAYER: O Lord of Forgiveness; you know the temptations I face.  Help me avoid the ones I can and overcome the ones I can’t avoid.  Forgive me for the ones I fall to and help me to forgive myself, others, and to keep trying to overcome until I do for you. Amen.

 

See you in Church Sunday,

Pastor Sandy

 

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