Matthew 6:6

Matthew 6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Yesterday Jesus taught us about secret giving, and today Jesus will teach us about secret praying. Now there is nothing wrong about praying in public. When to preacher calls on someone to pray at church, that is good. The person will pray out loud and we can agree with him in our hearts. Sometimes when he says what we feel is what we would say if we were doing the praying, we might even say a little “amen!” to ourselves. That person is “leading” in prayer, and we are following right along with him. And that’s good. But back in Jesus’ day, the Pharisees prayed just to be seen of men. They would stand up in a prominent place and pray loudly so that everyone would think that they were so, so spiritual. And that’s what Jesus was teaching against. Those Pharisees were not praying to God; they were praying to be seen. Their prayers would not go any higher than the ceiling! So, when we pray, whether in public or private, Who are we praying to? That’s right. We are praying to God. And God will hear and answer our prayers, if we are really praying to Him.

Matthew 6:1,3,4

Matthew 6:1,3,4 Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. Alms is giving. And Jesus tells us in our verses for today that we should not brag about how much money we give in the offering plate. The Pharisees gave money so that people would see them giving the money. But giving in the offering plate at church should be giving to God. Jesus says we should be so private about our giving that our left hand shouldn’t even know what the right hand is doing. And that is pretty secretive! Don’t be showy when you give. After all, we are really giving to God. And when the offering plate is passed around at church, God sees what our right hand is giving and what our left hand is giving!

Matthew 5:21,22,27,28, 43-45

Matthew 5:21,22,27,28,43,44,45 Ye have heard that it was said ... Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: ... Ye have heard that it was said ... Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: Wow! These are hard words from Jesus. It isn’t enough to do all the right things, we have to think right too. But that seems impossible. Well, it is! And that is the whole point that Jesus was making: We can’t do all of the right things in order to go to heaven; we can’t even think all of the right things in order to go to heaven. We get to heaven by trusting in what Jesus did for us on the cross of Calvary. It isn’t what we do; it is what Jesus has done! Salvation isn’t what we can do; salvation is what Jesus has done for us!

Matthew 5:20

Matthew 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. You have got to be kidding! The scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day had so many rules to obey that it was almost impossible to keep up with them. And here Jesus was saying that in order to go to heaven, you had to do more than that! Jesus’ statement must have seemed beyond hopeless for the disciples. But what Jesus was saying was that it is impossible for us to obey everything. Our only hope is to trust in Jesus and trust in His righteousness and not our own. When we reach the place where we realize that we can’t keep all of the rules, it is then that we realize that we need someone else to help us out. It is then that we turn to Jesus as our Savior. Years ago when I was in college, I was a lifeguard at a swimming pool. They taught us that at first, do not to jump in to save a drowning person. The person is so crazy with fear trying to get out of the water that they will climb onto you trying to get some air, and soon there will be two people who drown. To save them, we were taught to wait until they stopped struggling and then you could safely pull them out of the water and to the shore. And that is the way it is with our sinful condition. We must stop trying to be good and trust in Jesus. He was good enough for all of us. If we trust Him, He can take us to heaven. And He will!

Matthew 5:14-16

Matthew 5:14-16 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Yesterday we talked about being salt and today our verse talks about us being light. Both are good pictures of how we as Christians should behave in the world. Just as Jesus said that He was the light of the world, we should be lights too. When light is around, darkness cannot exist. Even a little light, like a nightlight in the hallway, is enough light to remove the darkness. Darkness cannot exist when light shines in. Light dispels the darkness and shows us where there is dirt in the room and where we need to clean. And lastly, light helps us to see our way. If we don’t have light, we might stumble. But with light, we can see obstacles so that we won’t fall over them. We need light and we need to be light for others.

Matthew 5:13

 

Matthew 5:13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. The way salt is used today is not how salt was used during Bible times. Today, we think that this verse means that Christians should be sprinkled around the world. But that is not how salt was used during Bible times. When Jesus spoke these parables two thousand years ago, salt was used as a preservative. Bible people had no refrigerators and meat would spoil quickly. So they salted the meat, keeping the bacteria from spoiling the meat. When Jesus said Christians should be salt, He meant that we should be a preserving agent for the rest of the world. We need to let people that they are on the wrong road and are separated from God, their loving Creator. They need to know that if they obey Jesus and let Him make them into a new creature, they can live forever with God in heaven. We need to change our world; we need to be a preserving agent for our world; we need to be salt – Biblical salt.