Monday Morning Memo: At Peace Part 1

This week we find our beatitude in Matthew 5:9 which tells us, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”  The Message says, “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight.  That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.”

As I began studying this beatitude, it didn’t take long to realize that maybe what I was finding wasn’t going to be as easy to swallow as I thought it would be. If I’m honest, I think this has probably been one of the beatitudes that I sort of skimmed over.  Why? Because I thought I had this one down. I know I need some growth with the previous beatitudes, but not this one.  I’ve always thought of myself as a peaceful person.  I don’t like fights or upheaval.  So I figured I could pass over this one.

But of course I had to dig a little deeper to be able to write about it today, because maybe YOU needed to learn about being a peacemaker.  I should know by now that whenever I think that way…it won’t be long until my own toes are feeling rather bruised.  So we will spend at least two weeks, and possible three, on this convicting beatitude.

So what is a peacemaker?  Peacemakers are those whose life demonstrates peace.  This is just common sense, but I think we need to look at with who we are supposed to be at peace.  First of all, I think we need to realize that:

1. Peacemakers are at peace with God.  We read in Romans 5:1, “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord had done for us.”  Then, James 4:1-4 tells us, “What is causing the quarrels and fights among you?  Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you?  You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it.  You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them.  Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it.  And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong – you want only what will give you pleasure.

You adulterers!  Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God?  I say it again:  If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.”

Well now…James didn’t mince any words here, did he?  I’m guessing he didn’t receive the most popular award from those listening; but he knew that he had to preach the truth, even if it made him unpopular.  It saddens me that some Christians today, even some in our pulpits, want to sugarcoat the gospel so that everyone feels good and doesn’t get their feelings hurt.  As followers of Christ, we are called to speak His Word in truth, even if it doesn’t make us well-liked.

It is obvious from James’ words that if we have anything in our life that isn’t pleasing to God, that sin makes us His enemy.  As a result, for us to have peace with our God, we need to make sure we don’t have unconfessed sin in our life.  Thank goodness, since Jesus died on the cross for our transgressions, we can have our sins forgiven and as a result we can have peace with our God. A peacemaker is someone who has ended all conflict with God and has accepted His Word as absolute truth.  You can’t make peace unless you are at peace with God.

I think before we continue with this beatitude, it might be a good idea for us to do some self-inventory this week.  Is there anything in your life and in my life, that isn’t pleasing to God?  Are we more concerned about what everyone else thinks of us, instead of making sure we are at peace with Him?  Are we willing to stand up for God’s Word, speaking the truth, even when some may turn against us?

I know this hasn’t been a “feel-good” post, but I know there may be those, including myself, who need some toe-stepping.  I’m willing to take the chance…will you join me?

Until next week…

Monday Morning Memo: Heart-Cleaning Part 2

Last week we began looking at the beatitude in Matthew 5:8, which reads, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” The Message states it this way, “You’re blessed when you get your inside world – your mind and heart – put right.  Then you can see God in the outside world.”  We ended by asking ourselves if we really want God to see and know our heart.  He does, whether we like it or not, but what are we doing to make sure our heart is clean and fully devoted to Him?  Are we ready and willing to pray David’s prayer, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”?                                                                                                  

So how can we maintain a pure heart as we go through our days?  By ourselves, it is impossible, but what is impossible for us is possible for God!  With Him living in us and His Spirit controlling us, we can have a heart that is pleasing to Him.

One of the most primary ways we can develop a pure heart is by spending time in the Word of God.  As the psalmist said, “How can a young man keep his way pure?  By living according to your word” (Psalm 119:9) and then in Psalm 119:11, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”   If we are struggling with having a pure heart, we need to check how much time we are spending in His Word.

Another way to maintain a pure heart is through fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, because it helps to be accountable to one another.  Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, ”Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work:  If one falls down, his friend can help him up.  But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!”  The author of Hebrews tells us in 10:24, “Let us consider how we can spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”  If you aren’t spending time with other believers, I highly encourage you to make it a priority.

Thirdly, we can train our heart for pure living by serving our Jesus.  The more we serve Him, the more devoted we become, the more we will want to make sure our heart is pleasing to Him.

The end of this beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”,gives me chills!  When our time on this earth is over, those who have faithfully served Him as their Lord and Savior will see Him face to face for all of eternity.  I John 3:2 reads, “We know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”.

What an amazing promise!  Spending eternity with our Jesus is what we should look forward to…beyond college degrees, beyond climbing the corporate ladder or even beyond a secured retirement. Seeing Him face to face will make our focus of having a pure heart all worthwhile!  

Monday Morning Memo: Heart-Cleaning Part 1

Today’s beatitude is the most central and significant of all the beatitudes mentioned in this fifth chapter of Matthew. Because of this, we will look at it in two parts, one today and then we will conclude it next week.

Matthew 5:8 says: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”  The Message states it this way:  "You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.”

This beatitude is so central to our behavior because you can’t be poor in spirit without having a pure heart. You can’t mourn for the things that displease God without having a pure heart. You can’t be meek, you can’t hunger and thirst for righteousness, you can’t be merciful, you can’t be a peacemaker or be prepared to withstand persecution for the name of Christ without having a pure heart. Actually, this is one of the most central principles of the Christian life that we see in the whole Bible. The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart.

Unfortunately, we are usually more careful to keep everything clean that is seen by others and forget about the things that only God can see. If my hands are muddy, nobody wants to shake hands with me, so I better keep them clean. If I am wearing a dirty shirt, there is a good chance that you would give more attention to my shirt and not hear what I am saying. We want to keep up appearances before others, but we forget about keeping pure before God.

That is why Jesus gave such a harsh rebuke to the scribes and Pharisees, who thought of themselves as the purest of all people. They were extremely careful to keep their outward appearance clean before men, but they didn’t worry about their relationship with God. Jesus told them:  “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence! You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too.

What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.  (Matthew 23:25-28)

Explaining to the disciples, He said in Matthew 15:19-20:  “For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you.”  

This is the impure heart.

1 Chronicles 28:9 says, “And Solomon, my son, learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately. Worship and serve him with your whole heart and a willing mind. For the Lord sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. If you seek him, you will find him. But if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.”

That is why David’s prayer in Psalm 139:23-24 was, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  Point out anything in me thatoffends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.” 

There are moral laws that man can break but God cannot. Do you know there are certain things I can do that God can’t? I can lie. I can commit adultery. I can cheat. I can steal. But God can’t break these moral laws, nor can He ignore them when we break them. We are usually fairly careful to observe the local laws set by our government because we have immediate consequences, but many times, we ignore the moral laws that have far more serious consequences. Having a pure heart means keeping God’s moral laws.

The interesting thing is that when we think of adultery, we think of it in the physical sense, having a sexual relation outside of marriage. The Bible does talk about this kind of adultery and certainly prohibits it. However, the Bible talks about spiritual adultery far more than physical adultery. There is a whole book written to deal with the issue of the spiritual adultery of the people of God, the book of Hosea. There are many chapters in the Old Testament that deal with the spiritual adultery of the people of God.

In the New Testament, Jesus said you can’t worship God and money. So when we devote our hearts to anything that is other than the cause of God, we commit spiritual adultery. As James said in James 4:4 & 8:  4) “You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.”  8) “Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.”

Both the Old and New Testaments say, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with allyour mind’. This is the first and the greatest commandment”(Matthew 22:37-38; also Deuteronomy 6:5).

This is a pure heart in the spiritual sense.

The question is, do we really want God to see and know our heart?  He does, whether we like it or not, but what are we doing to make sure our heart is clean and fully devoted to Him?  Are we ready and willing to pray David’s prayer, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  Point out anything in me thatoffends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”?  If we aren’t, then maybe we should spend this next week asking God to give us the courage to pray this prayer, expecting God to do a heart-cleaning within us for His glory!

Until next week…  

Monday Morning Memo: Are You Care-Full?

I think today’s beatitude may be one that many of us think we are living out, but if we were truly honest, would realize we have a ways to go to fulfill it.  In Matthew 5:7 we read, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”  The Message states it this way: “You’re blessed when you care.  At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.”

I think most of us think that we care about others, but I think we need to analyze whether we really care like our Jesus has demonstrated for us.  We read in Ephesians 5:1-2 (The Message), “Watch what God does, and then you do it, likechildren who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does islove you.  Keep company with him and learn a life of love.  Observe how Christloved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant.  He didn’t love in order toget something from us but to give everything of himself to us.  Love like that.” 

These verses tell us that just like children imitate their parents, we should imitate Christ.  His great love for us led Him to sacrifice himself so that we might live.  Our love for others should be the same kind – a love that goes beyond affection to self-sacrificing service.  In other words, we need to show true mercy.

To have mercy for someone is to go the extra mile for him or her.  It’s not caring for them because you know you will get something in return. And it’s not just having pity for someone.  I believe we can have pity for someone but not really care about him or her.  Pity doesn’t require any action, mercy does.

One definition of mercy is “compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm.”  In other words, if you have someone in your life that you really do have reason to punish for what they have done to you, but you show them compassion or forgiveness, that is being merciful.  Jesus could have denied mercy to those who crucified Him, but He forgave them and asked God to forgive them.  That mercy filtered down to us, as we were the reason He hung on that cross.

This is where showing mercy can become really difficult.  Since we are to imitate Christ, we are to also show mercy and concern for those whom we could just as easily hurt…maybe because they hurt us first.  It isn’t easy though to show mercy to someone who has seriously wronged us, is it?  Our first thought is usually revenge, but God tells us to be merciful.  If we are going to look like our Jesus, we need to be willing to show mercy by forgiving the person who has wronged us even though that tends to go against the grain.  Now it may be necessary for there to be some sort of punishment or restitution from the person who wronged us, but we can still forgive them.

Preventing suffering is another means of showing mercy.  When we donate to the Red Cross, our church or other charitable organizations, we are showing mercy.  When we hand a bottle of cold water to someone who needs it, we are showing mercy. Any way we can help fits the description.  The best way to show mercy is to act.  Even the words “I forgive you” requires action on our part…we really have to forgive and not store it up for later use.

There are other mental things we have to watch out for if we truly want to show mercy.  The first is not to feel like we’re somehow the better person.  Any “holier than thou” reaction negates the good done by our actions.

We also need to avoid announcing our good deeds.  Jesus called out the Pharisees for this, but the same holds true for us.  Telling about how we’ve been feeding, clothing or otherwise helping out the homeless makes us look good in the eyes of others. If that is our goal, that may be the only reward we receive.

Unfortunately, mercy is only easy if the other guy is doing it.  When it comes down to you and me, it gets a lot harder.  But it can be done, as it was done for us.

We need to remind ourselves from time to time that the beatitudes represent signs of those who are truly Christ’s disciples.  So if we truly want to be a devoted follower of His, we need to be willing to show mercy.