TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48
Read: Matthew 5:21-48
Listen: Matthew 5
TODAY’S MESSAGE
Jesus begins his ministry by teaching what God’s kingdom is like and what God requires to enter his kingdom. People in Jesus’s day think they have a good picture of how to enter the kingdom. Religious rulers, known as Pharisees, follow rigid rules they believe will keep them pure before God. In one of his first teachings, known as The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes six common teachings of the day and turns them upside down. Jesus’s average listeners may think they are doing pretty well with God because they aren’t murdering, cheating on a spouse or breaking vows they made to God. But Jesus reveals how God cares not just about outward actions but the inward condition of people’s hearts and minds.
We can easily justify our behavior too. We think we’re doing well with God because we attend church, serve, give and live “pretty good” lives. But we’ll see over the next four weeks during the RE:THINK sermon series how God cares deeply about our thoughts, attitudes and feelings, along with our outward actions. Jesus urges us to rethink and reimagine who God created us to be. If we are to be “perfect” as our heavenly Father is, we can’t perform our way into it. Only Jesus can provide the heart and mind transformation we need.
IN YOUR CHAIR TIME TODAY
Spend time in prayer, asking God to help you recognize any areas you need to rethink. Ask him to transform your heart and mind over the next four weeks through his power. “Father, I recognize I need your help to rethink areas of my life. Reveal where my thoughts, attitudes, feelings and actions do not match yours. Make me more like Jesus in these coming weeks. Amen.”
NEW TESTAMENT READING PLAN
Join us this year as we read through the New Testament.
Today’s reading is Acts 22.
