21 "You're familiar with the command to the ancients, 'Do not murder.' 22 I'm telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother 'idiot!' and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell 'stupid!' at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill.
27 "You know the next commandment pretty well, too: 'Don't go to bed with another's spouse.' 28 But don't think you've preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices - they also corrupt. 29 "Let's not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here's what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. 30 And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump.
33 "And don't say anything you don't mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. 34 You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, 'I'll pray for you,' and never doing it, or saying, 'God be with you,' and not meaning it. You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.
Our living, our righteousness, is to exceed that of the most obviously religious.
We are to go beyond the letter of the law to the spirit of the law.
We are to read the Bible looking not for a rule to live by but a hope to live with.
We are to hang in there - practicing a lot of confession and forgiveness - always choosing the way which has a chance to lead to life - no matter what.
Our challenge is to try love no matter what! For God is love and love is the closest thing we have to perfect on this side of the grave. We are to live with love at the center of our lives. Love born of God’s never ending grace.
For no one can make it without grace. There is no religiousness which makes grace unnecessary!
“No one can make it without grace.”
Prayer thought for the week: "Lord, help me to loving even when I don't want to."
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