matthew 6 opens with talk about giving to the needy.
1"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
so if i am doing volunteer work to get out of chapel, or because i was asked to, and people see me and reward me for it i will not get a reward i n heaven. or when i put i did this volunteer work on my resume? no i do not think so. but it makes you wonder why christen school as for volunteer work, when this could cause an addiction to get rewards on earth that would keep you out of heaven.
well that really does not make sense, but i am going to leave it in there.
matthew 6 goes on to talk about prayer. we all know about pray, we are told to pray for everything. and pray with out ceceing. well i think i do, see i talk to myself, and in turn i think i am talking to God. every seen that TV show scrubs the main charter JD talks to himself. that is how i am i talk to myself ask myself questions, but God hears me.
Fasting is also spoke about in matthew 6. well i have never been good at fasting, i am to fat and i like food to much. maybe i should fast, maybe instead of money being my idol it is food. this is just a new thought to me as i write this. but i do not think food is an idol, i just enjoy it.
Worrying is also in matthew 6. dang that is hard to read. casue it is hard not to worry. and when you try not to worry you start to worry that your worrying and it is all a mess. before i was married i was single. i had had college debt, about every 2 to 3 months, i would make myslef sick with worry that i will never get my debt paid off. since i have gotten married it has become better, cause my wife is better with money then i am, i still worry, but i know everything is getting paid. gos will take care of you it says, god takes care of everything, just look at the birds. yeah but the birds do not have house payments, or have to buy cloths for there family, of food form the store. it is stressful, how do you keep from worrying form taking over your life? ii think that is the key, you are going to worry, but how do you keep that worry in check and leave it up to god and not let the worry make you sick?
1 comment:
The true key to Matthew 6 is what is meant to say – namely to people that want to have sincere faith. If you closely inspect that whole chapter you will find that Jesus is addressing a problem within religious leadership and the attention paid to ‘money’…almost as if people were using their faith to take advantage of the followers.
The righteousness thing is in defense of the blatantness of the religious elite to be seen by people as ‘looking religious via their religious deeds’. One could easily say they were using this to get rewards for the here and now (ie: money or whatever). This was an abuse of what being a religious leader is all about – it’s using your sincerity to defraud another of their belongings – we see this a lot with television evangelists. They seem to be doing so much good – but in essence they use their good works to get more stuff out of you (ie: usually money).
The others examples of fasting and prayer exist to hammer this point home – these people even look ultra religious to us so we think they are our examples – and maybe we should give to them – however what is always in question is ‘sincerity’. I think Jesus us making the point of being sincere about doing good – whether that is in charity, prayer, or fasting – do not do these things so people can give you recognition – but do them because you actually mean to do them.
This plays into your volunteer example – if you do it for the purpose of loving your neighbor – even your neighbor will notice your sincerity. But if you do them for some religious show – then again – even your neighbor will notice and likely not trust you. Sincerity in our faith is a huge issue right now.
The worrying passage is also framed as a command ‘do not be anxious’. What we need to personally figure out is what makes us anxious/nervous/worrisome and then deal with those issues in our daily lives. We should trust God and know that we are loved by Him – and the best way to do that is to love others – who in turn will love you back. Then very soon you find you have no need for too much worry – everything seems to be fitting into its rightful place and because people do care about you – you truly will always be taken care of.
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