We’ve been looking into the Sermon on the Mount which started with Matthew 5 to 7 and we’re continuing from Matthew 6:11-15 where Jesus taught us how to pray. As we take on this prayerful lifestyle, we begin to enter new Heavenly realities and Jesus explains here what Life is like in the Kingdom of Heaven. He shows us the values we will possess living in the Kingdom of Heaven while still confined to this world. As we grow, our values will change. He starts with a couple aspects of our physical needs and then addresses our relationships with others.
Jesus calls us to live a life in the Kingdom of Heaven while here on earth, as we’ve been discussing. In doing so, our purposes for living change. All around us people are consumed with accumulating the stuff of this world. These might be material possessions. It might be adrenaline highs. Perhaps it’s television shows? Jesus specifically mentions material wealth. We’ll be speaking a lot about biblical wisdom on this subject in this blog, but here we’ll stick to Matthew.
We are on this earth for such a short time. Hoarding wealth for the future is a very worldly notion that shows no understanding of what our lives truly are. Jesus teaches that our time and our wealth should be spent on things of lasting value beyond our few years on this earth. They are gone before we know it and then we will spend an eternity living on the foundation that we have built in these few years.
We always serve somebody. If we are focused on accumulating wealth, then we are serving this wealth. If we are focused on the outdoors, then we are serving the outdoors. We never feel like this is what we are doing, but it has the focus of our attention above all others. These things are creations that God has accomplished either directly or through man. It is no different than worshipping a golden cow that we fashion with our hands. Jesus is not saying that money is bad, but that it is a lower force. One of the many things that He’s created. And when we are serving it, we are squandering our lives when we should instead be building into our eternity. We will spend forever there, and we have a few short years now to actively change the quality of that eternity. Shouldn’t we take that seriously?
I hope this doesn’t sound too heavy. Jesus goes on to show us how easy life in the Kingdom can be when God takes care of everything for us and on Monday we’ll continue there, along with discussing what Jesus says about judging others. Many people get this wrong today.
I hope you’ll share this blog with others and let us know what you think about these verses.
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