Category: Bible Reading & Meditation
“You have heard the commandment, ‘You shall love your countryman but hate your enemy.’ My command to you is: love your enemies, pray for your persecutors. This will prove that you are sons of your heavenly Father.” —Matthew 5:43-45 Jesus repeatedly commands us to love our enemies. This is the essence of Jesus’ teaching — not only because it is part of the Sermon on the Mount, but also because it is what Jesus did when He died for us on the cross. Nonetheless, many people, including Christians, have ignored Jesus’ repeated commands to love their enemies. They dismiss the...
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“What I say to you is: offer no resistance to injury.” —Matthew 5:39 We are not to resist injury, but we are to “resist the devil” and he will flee from us (Jas 4:7). In fact, we are to charge the gates of hell, which cannot prevail against us (Mt 16:18). We should give the devil resistance plus aggression. However, we must offer no resistance to insult from people. We should not avenge ourselves (Rm 12:19). We should not be resisting and fighting human forces but Satan (Eph 6:12). At first, this approach seems unrealistic and doomed to failure. Look...
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“He who feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has life eternal and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is real food and My blood real drink. The man who feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in him.” —John 6:54-56 When we receive Holy Communion and when we celebrate this solemn feast of Corpus Christi, we are making a great act of faith. (St. Thomas Aquinas maintained that faith in the Body and Blood of Jesus is the greatest act of faith.) Today we publicly profess...
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“Say ‘Yes’ when you mean ‘Yes.’ ” —Matthew 5:37 Jesus is, to put it mildly, a Man of His word. In fact, He is the God-Man of His word. He is the incarnate and eternal Word. Consequently, it is in character for Jesus to say in the Sermon on the Mount: “Say ‘Yes’ when you mean ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ when you mean ‘No.’ Anything beyond that is from the evil one” (Mt 5:37; cf Jas 5:12). Jesus “was not alternately ‘yes’ and ‘no’; He was never anything but ‘yes.’ Whatever promises God has made have been fulfilled in Him” (2...
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“What I say to you is: anyone who looks lustfully at a woman has already committed adultery with her in his thoughts.” —Matthew 5:28 We live in a promiscuous society where girl-watching and boy-watching seem virtuous compared to fornication, adultery, and pornography. What once was called pornography is now called prime-time TV. However, Jesus calls us to sexual purity, not merely a lesser degree of perversion. We are not even to look lustfully at another person. Jesus calls us to commit ourselves to sexual purity, so that if our right eye is our trouble, we gouge it out (Mt 5:29)....
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