Reading
SAA Notes
This is a shorter account of the Sermon on the Mount than Matthew’s. It’s a passage you can ponder over year after year – there is much gold to be mined here. What gleams out at you today?
SJA Notes
* Holy God, thank You for Your word to us today. Please write it on the tablet of our hearts.
“… Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”
What is the measure we use?
Are our hearts full of God’s love and mercy?
Are we content in our pursuit of holiness, or do we long for the worldly lights?
Do we submit ourselves humbly under the mighty hand of God, refusing our natural response to lash out in judgement, to condemn this or that – Instead going about with forgiveness and open-handed giving, trusting that our Heavenly Father has laid out our good works?
This is the mechanic laid out through God’s word – What is the measure we use?
Remember Jesus’ words in teaching us to pray in Matthew 6,
“… And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
WITH THE SAME MEASURE, IN THE SAME WAY!
“For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”
This is both a joyful trumpeting and a hard word of warning.
Let us be both encouraged and exhorted today, convicted to give without thought of return, to forgive as we were forgiven, to resist the partiality of human condemnation and judgement.
* Gracious Father,
Please help us to remember Your words to us – That we might be open-hearted in our generosity towards others, with our energy and time and resources.
Please make us more like Jesus today.
Amen.