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The Kingdom theme continues…this is the economy of God’s world. Everything is upside down…more gracious, more legalistic, more intense, just … more.
Reading this a few years ago started me on a path that I’m still fumbling on. Fasting, giving to the needy, loving your enemies, investing in heavenly things, fruit bearing are all placed on the same spiritual ‘playing field’ as prayer.
I find it confusing, convicting, and indicting that the current fad of the evangelical movement is “prayer.” We need to be a people of prayer, more time in prayer, more purposeful in prayer, more programs and times to pray.
Jesus says - keep your prayers to yourself. In fact - when you pray in public and get the ‘amens’ - there is your reward. Instead, go help the needy. Love your enemies. Pluck your eye out if it causes you to sin. Forgive. Fast. Bear fruit. Be more righteous than how the religious of people talk. That’s following me.
It completely stands counter-Christian-culture to most everything I’ve been taught and I represent.
What do I do with this mess You’ve created in my life?
Tags: lent, Sermon on the Mount
1 response so far ↓
1 lonkurtz // Mar 4, 2006 at 11:42 am
i find that now that i am engagged i am a terrible gift giver. i have not the slightest clue as to what i should get. i don’t know i might be alone on this. i also think anne is the hardest person to buy gifts for. she doesn’t like practical gifts. what does that even mean? i only know practical gifts!
it’s interesting to me that God knows how to give good gifts. especially when it comes to us praying for what we think we need. i’ve heard it said that God is into giving us the better, even when we don’t think it is the better. i’ve asked for many things in my life that i thought i needed, but often times i can now look back and see the better God has given me. He is truely the good gift giver. i just have to trust that even though me being evil know some about good gifts, trust that God is good and He always gives the better.
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