I bet you didn’t know you had two hearts inside you. It’s not that if you put a stethoscope up to your chest you would hear two beats. That’s not what Jesus is talking about in this part of the Sermon on the Mount. It’s the fact that there are two opposing forces within you that battle for control of your life. In the Bible, the heart is usually used to describe the center of your physical, emotion and spiritual being. It is used to describe that which makes you who you are on the inside. Take a moment to reread Matthew 6: 19-24. Yesterday we talked about what you treasure by describing what is stored inside that shed of yours called your life. Today we are going to talk about why you stock your shed the way you do. It all boils down to inner motives, or one’s heart.

First notice that Jesus teaches that there is a good heart. I know that with some people you know, you have to search a long time to find it, but trust me, it’s there. Jesus equates the good heart with the good eye. That’s because it is the eye that gives entrance into your mind. As Solomon said, “A man looks at what he thinks about, and what he thinks about is what he actually becomes” (Proverbs 23: 7). If you focus upon Jesus, who is the light of the world, then your mind will be full of light. When your mind is full of light, then the things you do in life will also be full of light. If you focus on something other that Jesus, then your entire body is full of darkness. We remember from the third chapter of John that darkness is where sin and ugliness abounds.

A man’s heart is precisely where his treasure lies. If your treasure is in things on this planet, then your heart is also there. Jesus illustrates this truth by using the example of the eye. If your eye is good and healthy, then you are able to focus upon eternal treasure and you are able to grasp the truth. If your eye is unhealthy, you are described as being blind and residing in darkness.

I have always found it interesting how Jesus concludes His thought here. He gives another contrast, that of serving two very different masters. "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money,” Jesus points out. Serving a master in Jesus’ day was a full time job. Actually it was more than a full time job as we normally equate full time with something over forty hours a week. Servanthood in those days didn’t end at 5:00 PM. We labor for our master all day and think about it all night. There is absolutely no time for anything or anyone else.

Think about the possibility of serving both God and your wallet. At some point, they will come into conflict. It is inevitable. That’s because they have a completely different set of priorities. They are going in totally opposite directions. There is no way you can have more than one ultimate point of reference for your actions. I know it’s unfair, but that’s the way life is sometimes.

So that means you have a choice in this life. Who will you serve? Will it be God or material things? Matthew Henry wrote, “A man may do some service to two masters, but he can devote himself to the service of no more than one. God requires the whole heart, and will not share it with the world. When two masters oppose each other, no man can serve both. He who holds the world and loves it, must despise God; he who loves God, must give up the friendship of the world.” With God, it’s an all or nothing kind of thing.

Day 2 – A Tale of Balance

The ancient Egyptians knew that people were going to be dead a lot longer than they would be alive. As a disciple of Jesus Christ, you are called to be an eternal being. I don’t know about you, but I find it exciting to realize that there are a whole lot of treasures that are being laid up for me in heaven. It might take me several lifetimes to sift through it all, but I think I might have the time when I get there. It’s an idea that can be treasured in my heart when life and ministry here becomes too tough. It’s something that I can think of when following God is not what I want to do right now. It’s something I can think of when God is in the middle of some “character building” in my life.

Yet while it is nice to think about eternity, I have to live in this world right now. I believe Jesus’ lesson here is just as applicable now as it will be in heaven. Try to remember the kind of things that we were laying in our heavenly storage shed a couple of days ago. We had things on our shelf like loving God, living a blameless life, becoming God’s child, Godly wisdom, understanding His Will, and a life that is abundant and overflowing. Would you say there is any present value to any of these things on our shelf?

The reality is that there is no one reading this who will immediately go out and sell everything that they own. If we are truthful with ourselves, we do like our “things.” We enjoy having a steady income. Though we live in a land of plenty, it is possible for us to live without guilt because of the nature of our God. We can take comfort in the words of Paul to his son in the faith, Timothy, when he said, “Tell those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which will soon be gone. But their trust should be in the living God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.” Did you get what Paul said? It is God who gives you everything. He does it because it pleases Him and He wants you to enjoy them, just don’t let them be your master.

One of the greatest things that I have read on this subject comes from a Christian author by the name of Ruth Barton. She wrote in an article in Christianity Today, “But a balanced perspective reminds me that money does have it limitations. It can buy clothes but not true beauty. An exotic vacation but not the ability to relax and sleep. A big house, but not a happy family. Sports fees and equipment, but not a dad. Expensive gifts, but not love. A Better Homes and Gardens lifestyle, but not a man who has time and energy left to play games or read stories.

A balanced perspective also keeps me from being consumed by my desires and warns me about sacrificing what really matters in life for things that never quite satisfy. Contrary to the myth of materialism, it isn’t the ones who die with the most toys who win. It’s those who’ve loved their families well and know the joy of having that love returned. It’s those who’ve known what it is to spend their lives for a purpose greater than themselves. It’s those who’ve known their God and look forward to eternity with Him.”

There is not a lot that I can add to the wisdom of Ruth Barton. For me, what she wrote here has always said it all. Think about these words the next time you just have to have some thing you saw on television.

Day 3 – Worry is a State of the Heart

How do you account for the fact that the “baby boomer” generation, the first generation in American history to be given all the necessities of life, seem to worry more than any other generation? As I prepared for this part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, I went on the website for Christianity Today and did a search on the words worry and anxiety. The search turned up over 500 articles. What most of them were about were the things that we tend to worry about; like children, the environment or the future. Now I am sure that most people would agree that Christianity Today’s target audience consist of Christians. My research says that even the Christian seems to worry about things. So I have to ask, where does God fit into all of this? How does He feel about Christians who worry about things?

Take a moment to read Matthew 6: 25-34. If you go back a few verses to 21, Jesus is teaching His disciples about our heart. Remember it is the heart that is the center of all that we are physically, mentally and spiritually. The Christian who finds himself treasuring the things of this world in his heart is the target of today’s scripture reading. Look at the very first word in today’s reading. It’s the word, “therefore.” That means you have to back up a few verses to find out what Jesus is talking about because it has a direct bearing on what He is about to say.

So what does today’s passage teach us about worry? First of all, it teaches that worry is unnecessary. In verse 27, Jesus teaches that worry won’t make me taller, warmer nor will it make me live longer. There is nothing I can do about any situation in life by simply worrying about it. Jesus isn’t teaching us that we need to lay back and let God do all the work. The birds that Jesus describes here are some of the more industrious creatures that God created. It’s just that you don’t see a lot of birds checking into hospitals with stress disorders.

Second, Jesus teaches us that worry is improper. It ignores the fact that God is my provider. It ignores that God even has a hand in my life. It says that we believe that our God is either too big or too impersonal to care. Jesus tells us in verse 26 that you are more valuable to Him than birds, yet He cares for their needs. Perhaps we carry the ideas around in our head that God cares about us, but we’ve failed to let our heart know.

Third, Jesus teaches His disciples that worry is unproductive. In verse 34, he tells us that worry is a waste of time. Brian Heckler of Southeast Christian Church writes, “According to our nation’s Bureau of Standards, a dense fog covering seven city blocks to a depth of a hundred feet contains less than one glass of water. All of that fog, if it could be condensed into water, wouldn’t quite fill a drinking glass. Compare this to the things we often worry about. Life fog (aka worries) can thoroughly block our vision of the light of God’s promises, but the fact is, they have very little substance to them.”

Look inside yourself. What do you tend to worry about? I have found that a majority of the time, people worry about things that haven’t yet happened. It seems to me a tremendous waste of time worrying about things in the future because it might not happen the way your envision it. Just think about all of that energy wasted on something that never happens. We’re going to be talking about the answers by the time we’re through so hang in there.

Day 4 – The Antidote to Worry

Yesterday we talked about how worry is not what God wants for His disciples. So there needs to be an alternative. What else are we to do to occupy the time we spend worrying? Jesus gives us the answer in Matthew 6: 33. As a part-time musician, I will tell you that this verse has been put into more songs than any other that I can think of. You’ve sung it but have you ever thought about what the verse is actually teaching you?

Whenever you look at a verse, it is always important to read it in its context. Remember the Bible was not written with verses included. If you were able to read the original manuscript as written by Matthew, it wouldn’t even have the chapters that we have all come to expect in the Bible. It was just one long document. The verses and the chapters were added much later to give a point of reference to the various ideas that are contained in the Bible’s pages. If you look at verse 33 in its context, Jesus is teaching us to depend on God for our very sustenance. He has talked about the birds and the lilies as examples of how God feeds and clothes His creation. Jesus tells us that God will do even more for us, the only creation made in His own image. He taught us to keep our focus, that which we treasure, on heavenly, eternal things, and not on the things of this world. Now He puts a cap on that teaching in verse 33.

To begin, let’s start by defining our terms. The verse’s meaning should come clear once we understand the terms that Jesus used. The first is that of the Kingdom of God. We have talked before about the Kingdom of God, as that was a common subject of Jesus’ earlier messages. If we think about kingdom, we commonly think of someone ruling. In other words, a king rules a kingdom. What the king says within his realm is what happens. He’s in charge. This kingdom has a very different ruler, for this is the Kingdom of God, where God is in charge. Remember our discussion on the Lord’s Prayer, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done.” It’s the same idea in the sense that we are seeking His kingdom here on earth. Yet from history we know that there has never been a physical kingdom that had God as absolute ruler. The best definition that I have ever come across for this verse was, “The rule of God in someone’s heart.” At least that’s the definition that makes the most sense in the context of this verse. I am to seek God’s rule in my heart.

The second word that needs a definition is the word, righteousness. What does it mean to be righteous? I can exclaim after an excellent meal, “That was one righteous piece of meat,” but I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind. When I look up the Greek word Jesus used in Vine’s Expository Dictionary, he defines the word as the sum total of God’s will in your life. As I let that definition roll around in my brain, suddenly verse 33 comes into sharp focus.

Jesus’ antidote for worry lies in what I seek, or earnestly strive for. If I go after the material things of this world, then I am on my own. Jesus has taught me that they are temporary at best, so the joy I receive from them will also be temporary. If I earnestly seek after God’s rule in my heart and God’s will for my life, He will provide the physical things that I need to go about the business of living. After all, if I am going to be a tool for the Master, He doesn’t need a blunt tool.

So why would God do all of this for me? Peter wrote, “Cast all your anxiety on Him, He cares for you” (1 Peter 5: 7). I guess that sums it all up. Of course what we’ve talked about today is much harder to do than it is to say. Isn’t that true of most things?

Day 5 – Here Comes the Judge

Have you ever felt the sting of a judging attitude from someone else? It probably angered you in some way. You may have been angry with the other person with a, “Who are you to talk,” response. The other response may have been to turn the anger on yourself by taking a “perhaps if I were a better person,” response. There have been times when we have all been on the receiving end of a judging spirit.

Perhaps you have found yourself on the other end of the equation. Is there ever a time when we can be justified in “straightening out” another believer? Surely there must be a time when judging someone else is allowed? In our study in the Sermon on the Mount, we’ve come a long way from Jesus words of 5: 20, where He made the statement that our righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees in order to gain entry into His kingdom. What good does it do to achieve that level of righteousness if we can’t flaunt it?

As we enter the seventh chapter of Matthew, we see Jesus turning his subject back to how His disciples are to relate to other people who come into their lives. We’ve found out that we have to do our religious duties with a right attitude. We had to get rid of materialism and worry. Now we can’t even judge someone else.

Paul teaches in Galatians 6: 1, 2 that it is our duty to restore another believer who is caught in some sin. He teaches that we are to bear each other’s burdens as a way of fulfilling the Law of Christ. Jesus in Matthew 18: 15-17 even gives us the three steps as a roadmap on how to do it. So there must be a difference between what is taught by Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount and the Apostle Paul. Over the next several days, we will take an exploration on the subject and see what Jesus has to say.

Actually, Jesus is alerting us to an attitude within us that makes us all too human. It is an attitude that tends to isolate us from the Kingdom of God. What He deals with in this section of the Sermon is our tendency to manipulate other people by blaming or condemning them. That’s what happens when we try to force our “wonderful solutions” to their problems upon them. After all, we know the way they should go, what path they should take.

Let’s pause and take a look at the entire section of scripture. If you have been reading these devotions, you know that I am a stickler for taking scripture in context. So take your Bible and read Matthew 7: 1-12. Normally verses 1-6 are taught as a lesson and then 7-12 are taught as a different and unrelated topic. I’m not so sure that is what Jesus intended; for both illustrate the inner texture of the Kingdom; both illustrate a positive characterization of the kind of love described by the Greek word AGAPE.

When you read verse 12, you found yourself reading a very familiar verse called “The Golden Rule.” There are some who will take this verse and make it out to be the sum total of all the Jesus taught. They feel that if we were to do just this single verse, life would be wonderful. Yet if you look at the first word of verse 12, you once again see Jesus using the word, “therefore.” That means the teaching He gives in 12 is contingent upon all that He said in the first 11 verses of this chapter. It all relates. Jesus intended the Golden Rule to be an illustration of the teaching in the first part of the chapter. Remember the rule to never take your teaching from an illustration; you take your beliefs and your doctrine from the pure teaching that came before the illustration.

Day 6 – The Doctrine of Judging

I turn on the tube and what do I see
A whole lotta people cryin' "Don't blame me"
They point their crooked little fingers at everybody else
Spend all their time feelin' sorry for themselves
Victim of this, victim of that
Your momma's too thin; your daddy's too fat
Get over it

What you’ve just read are the lyrics from one of my favorite songs by the Eagles. I guess I really like the song because it addresses a fundamental problem that exists in the society we live in. Sometimes I wonder if our children will call my generation the “blame generation.” Don Henley is right when he sings about the prevalence of blame that exists all around us. We see it in television news broadcasts, in our situation comedies and in our movies. When is that last time you saw someone on television or on the silver screen actually say, “It’s my fault?” Even when they do, the show’s plot usually involves psychiatry. We’ve been fed the line that to take responsibility for ones own action is somehow a mental illness.

Now you’re probably wondering where in the world I am going with this? To understand why I started today’s reading in this manner, you have to understand the meaning of the Greek word that Jesus uses in Matthew 7: 1. The first definition of the word is to properly distinguish or decide. In looking at the context of what Jesus was talking about in this section of the Sermon, the first definition doesn’t fit. What fits better is the second definition of the word, which is to avenge, condemn, damn, decree or call into question. I found it interesting to know that it is from this same Greek Word, Krino, we get the English word “criticize.” It describes someone who finds fault with others, or is being picky. Jesus is teaching that we must abandon the deeply rooted human practice of fault finding, condemning and blaming others.

People in our society seem to have a great deal of confidence in the power of condemnation to straighten out the people they come in contact with. I suppose it’s because it puts them in a position where they can’t lose. If the criticism works they gain a person who conforms to what they want them to be. If the criticism doesn’t help, they can always take the high ground by making it clear that they stand on the side of righteousness. Yet when they condemn in this manner, what does it really communicate? They are really saying that the target person is somehow bad or unacceptable. When we criticize, we sentence others to exclusion from the club of the “righteous.” Surely people can learn to live well and even happily without doing that?

I have no doubt that you’ve run into someone with this “gift.” Those who feel it is their obligation to correct others. Perhaps you’ve been the object of their stinging condemnation. When that happens to you, how do you respond? The normal response is to fight back, to defend your self. Look at what Jesus says in Matthew 7: 2. Many people feel He is talking about God in this verse, but I also found some sources who say Jesus was also referring to men. Read the verse again with that in mind and you will understand what I mean. It’s the “who are you to talk” response. That response is usually accompanied by anger, and we already know that anger usually attacks right back. That’s why judging never works as a method of correcting others. The response is almost always given in a wrong manner. There is a better way and Jesus is about to give it to you.

Day 7 – Specks and Logs

Once when I was younger, I had an eye issue. It started with constant tearing. That lasted a few days and then turned to great pain. I called my doctor, but was referred to an Ophthalmologist who couldn’t see me for a couple of days. I can still remember living in great pain for those two days. When I finally got in to see the eye doctor, he took a look, said I had a tear duct blockage and put some liquid in my eye. By the time I got home from the doctor, the eye had cleared up and I had no more problems.

I remember that incident every time I look at today’s Bible passage. It can be found in Matthew 7: 3-5. If you ever need someone to verify that the eye is a sensitive area of the body, I can always drop by your house to tell my story. I think the eye is probably the most sensitive area of the body except for another part of me that is even more sensitive that the eye. That part would be the ego, my self-esteem. It is that part of me that is probably damaged the most easily and unfortunately takes longer to heal. It is that part of me that feels the most pain when confronted with the subject that Jesus is talking about today, criticism from other people.

When you look at today’s verses, the understanding comes clearer when we take a look at the original Greek words that Jesus used here. The first word is translated speck or mote. It is a small, dry stalk that could easily fly into an eye during a windy day. I suppose most of the people reading this piece can relate to getting something in the eye during a windy day. Here Jesus is using the word metaphorically to describe a small flaw that is seen in another’s character or actions. The second word was used in Jesus’ day to describe a large log of wood that was used to anchor a house. This was one massive chunk of wood. So we see that in the illustration Jesus uses here, He is using the teaching technique of contrast.

There are some differences in the way that this particular passage is interpreted. The most common interpretation states that log represents a particular flaw in my own life that gets in the way of my freedom to do a little eye surgery. The log is usually a flaw that is similar to the speck because it is usually those traits that I have a problem with that annoy me most in others. Others, like Dallas Willard, believe that the board in our own eye is condemnation, itself. Condemnation, when accompanied by anger and contempt blinds us to the reality of the other person. Yet getting the board out of our own eye, so we can be free to condemn others is not what Jesus is saying. In this interpretation, we must get rid of condemnation entirely. You can take either interpretation; the verses still require us to do some self-examination and confession before we even begin to help another person.

The mine field that we cross here is that we live in a society that ignores the spiritual side of people. The Christian can understand that it is possible to condemn the sin and still love the sinner. Unfortunately that doesn’t work in today’s world because they don’t make that discrimination. They feel that, “I am my actions.” So if you reject my actions, you also reject me. That is why this kind of spiritual “correction” normally doesn’t work. So the question that begs to be answered is how do I discern right from wrong in people without condemning them? Stay tuned and we’ll get to that answer.

Day 8 – When the Good Becomes Deadly

We turn now to one of the more difficult verses in the Sermon on the Mount to understand. Look in your Bible at Matthew 7: 6. You may have to read it several times. The tendency is to read this verse and say, “Huh??” There are some who read this verse and conclude that there are some people in this world who are not worthy of Godly wisdom. There are others who use this verse to argue against compulsory religious education. They believe that someone must become worthy in order to warrant God’s truth. The problem with that interpretation is that it doesn’t square with the rest of the Bible and it is completely opposite from Jesus’ ministry.

I believe the idea that Jesus is conveying is that we tend to push the truth on people whether they want it or not. We tend to spout off Godly wisdom even when the listener is not ready to hear it. I can remember a time in my immature Christian years when I was talking about God with a friend of mine. He made the statement that he didn’t believe because of all of the eating restrictions found in the Old Testament. Unfortunately I used my newly found Bible knowledge to teach him about the different dispensations in the Bible and how Jewish dietary restrictions no longer applied. When I tried to describe the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, I would see in my friend’s eyes that he thought I was out of my mind. I have always used that lesson to remind me that when I am talking to someone outside the family of God to stick to the blood of Jesus. The real issue was not Jewish dietary rules. The real issue is what my friend was going to do with Jesus Christ.

The problem of pearls for pigs is not a question of worthiness at all. It is a question of helpfulness. The last time I checked, pigs could not digest pearls. Dogs cannot eat Bibles or crosses. As good as those things are they are not what the animal needs. That’s why Jesus says they will turn on you. At least you’re edible.

The issue is that Christians tend to approach the non-believer with a sense of superiority. After all, we have all of the answers. Isn’t that enough? Dallas Willard in his book, Divine Conspiracy, writes, “What we are actually doing with our proper condemnations and our wonderful solutions, more often than not, is taking others out of their own responsibility and out of God’s hands and trying to bring them under our control.” What Mr. Willard is saying is that we need to let God be God and restrict our involvement to being a mere tool. You will never argue or convince anyone into the Kingdom of God. That has never been, nor will it ever be, your job.

Just after Jesus had fed the five thousand, John records that the crowds wanted to crown Him king. Instead of taking a crown, He gave them a short sermon that we now call The Bread of Life. During that talk Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6: 45). I have always found that verse extremely profound. What that verse has always said to me is that God must be drawing someone to Himself before that person comes to know Him. Salvation is God initiated. It doesn’t come by my witness. I meet so many Christians who pray that they would be able to be a witness for Jesus. God just wants us to be sensitive to His Holy Spirit. I believe it is to those people God will lead His future children. For those people remain spiritually sensitive enough to understand that it is not by their words that a person is saved, but by the power of God. They just get to be a tool.