DAILY LENTEN DEVOTION: Friday, March 14 Matthew 5:20-26: “Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you; leave your offering there before the altar and go. First, be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your offering.” By these verses, Jesus is well into His Sermon on the Mount. He wants His disciples, the salt of the earth, to preserve mankind with the teachings of God as salt preserved food in their day. When we read back a few verses we learn that Jesus is describing to the disciples how to preserve the laws and keep them holy. Often we hear Jesus say “You have heard it said…..but I say unto you….” making it sound as though he is changing the game plan. He is telling us here he certainly is not. He is using these specific laws to show us how even relationally we must live together. It is not enough to just not commit murder, but you are also to be in good standing with your neighbors. He is making the case for genuine righteousness. To be told not to kill makes sense to us. But Jesus also tells us here that even being angry with someone puts us in danger of God’s judgment. He goes so far as to say that when we are presenting a gift at the altar, if we have had an altercation with someone or someone has something against us we must leave the offering and go make peace with that person before coming back to make the offering with a clean heart. It is impractical to think that an offering left “un offered” would still be there when we got back to give it properly. Money would be taken, and a live animal would have run away! Still, Jesus is telling us here that God does not want our offerings if we have not kept his laws. He wants us to come to terms with our adversaries quickly and pay the price of peace now rather than waiting until it is too late. When I was in Madagascar, one of the most poignant lessons I learned was that they do not give a gift of any kind with only one hand. They always give with two hands. This serves as a sign to the person on the receiving end that there are no motives. There is no sword in the other hand. They are giving freely of themselves to the recipient. I think this lesson can be applied here, for how can we give with both hands if the other is trying to conceal something? PRAYER Dear Lord, we pray that you would help us to keep your commandments and to present our offerings to you with both hands and a clean heart. Amen. Kimberly Wilson, Evangelism Committee
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 11:00:00 +0000
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