< Back

Read: Matthew 5:21-16
Listen: Matthew 5

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, “You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.” But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Matthew 5:21-22

Jesus’s popularity is growing as many view him as the long-awaited King and Savior. Jesus, however, comes with a new teaching that reveals a new way of life for his followers. In Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus describes how to practice this new way of life. This way requires loving one’s neighbor, putting off anger and a vengeful spirit and avoiding righteous acts for the sake of public gain or popularity. Jesus’s teaching is a fresh hearing of Moses and the Old Testament law that expanded people’s understanding of the heart of God.

Just as Jesus’s followers in the first century were called to a new way of life, so we are today. Jesus desires his followers to be different, both in how they think and live. Jesus is not saying his followers will no longer experience the emotion of anger. He is saying the Jesus community should live and look different from the outside world. Rather than being a people marked by anger, bitterness or revenge, the Jesus community is to be marked by love, forgiveness and reconciliation.

TODAY: Pray for the spiritual strength to take Jesus’s words seriously and as he taught. Perhaps pray something like: “Please help me to take Jesus’s teaching seriously. I believe you know the best way of life for me and others around me. Please give me the strength to apply these principles daily and live a transformed life. Amen.”