Today’s passage is Matthew 5:33-48.
Jesus says to avoid oaths when giving our word, turn the other cheek, give twice as much as is demanded of us, and be perfect like our heavenly Father.
In today’s passage, Jesus asks the impossible of me, to be perfect. How can I, a sinner, be perfect like God?
I rarely have the love, self-control and security to do any of what Jesus asks me to do today.
When I do turn the other cheek, for instance, I don’t recognize myself as the man I know.
Where does the power come from to do that and to sincerely help others, lend and give away my things, love the moslem children in Indonesia and in my school and actually pray for their angry, arrogant parents who demand special treatment?
What is the power to change me on occasion from the guy I know to this other fellow?
An incident in Indonesia gave me some insight about this.
Our bus driver brought his young son one day.
Because he spoke some English, I could talk to him.
I asked him if he liked stories. Yes.
Did they read them in school? Not often.
Did he write them in school? Oh, no.
Would he like to write stories? Yes.
I said it was important to write his story about where God had put him. Yes, he agreed.
That’s when the Holy Spirit put it in my mind to give the boy one of my special pens and all the paper I had brought. I resisted the idea.
I like my pens and I might need my paper.
At the end of the day, I got out of the bus and walked into a Holy Spirit wall.
I turned back to the bus, opened my bag and gave the boy my pen and my paper.
I said it was to write his story.
On my own, I would not have done that.
God’s power changed me for a moment so I could act with God’s mind.
I saw that it’s the Holy Spirit that will perfect me, not me or my striving.
I need more and more Spirit to follow Jesus every day.
No other way.
Today I added a prayer to pray: to ask the Spirit to give me God’s heart and mind in some way each day in order to be perfect in a way that I cannot.
