Thursday 15 June 2017
2 Corinthians 3:15 – 4:1, 3-6. Psalms 84(85):9-14. Matthew 5:20-26.
The glory of the Lord will dwell in our land — Psalms 84(85):9-14.
Our deepest desire.
Jesus tried to show his people that obeying the letter of the Law was not enough. The Pharisees thought differently. To them, ‘You must not kill’ meant just that. But Jesus is saying that these laws are not arbitrary: they help us understand what we are already bound to as children of God. What makes it wrong to kill also makes it wrong to hurt or humiliate another.
What makes adultery wrong makes impurity wrong.
So we will often go beyond the letter of a commandment if we see it as a way of loving God. And that is how Jesus saw it. We need to love God and one another—the commandments show us how.
Is this how I see them? The commandments show me that my deepest desires are to serve God and my neighbour—showing me how to do what I want to do anyway.
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