You can’t pray this prayer unless you forgive the people who have wronged you because you cannot look at a person who’s wronged you and refuse to forgive them unless you feel superior to them. So until you repent of your superiority (and thus become enabled to forgive those who have hurt you), God will not forgive you. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:5-15, Prayer From the Heart appeared first on Sunfield.

Christianity is not a system of self-improvement. It is not a list of rules and regulations to live by. It cannot be reduced to a program of morals and ethics. It is the story of God’s great work of salvation in Jesus. And by faith, you get to be a character in that grand story. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:2-4, Giving From the Heart appeared first on Sunfield.

Unless you are convinced that the love of Christ has nothing to do with your good behavior, you’ll turn the reward into a wage and see your sincerity as a stepping stone to acceptance with God. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:1, The Perils of Hypocrisy appeared first on Sunfield.

It seems like this God is willing to love anybody. Doesn’t he have any taste? Doesn’t he have any standards? I know why he would love the righteous and the good, but not bad people and unrighteous. BUT THIS IS WHAT GRACE IS! AND IT’S AMAZING! Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:43-48, Love Your Enemies appeared first on Sunfield.

Because Jesus turned the other cheek for us, God’s vengeance was satisfied on the cross — for vengeful, evil people like you and me. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:38-42, Two Kinds of Retaliation appeared first on Sunfield.

If Christianity is about anything, it’s about change. So if there is no change, Jesus is saying there is no Christianity. And if there is no Christianity, there is only judgment. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:33-37, Oaths, Honesty, & the Devil appeared first on Sunfield.

We need to see that a preoccupation with the grounds for divorce gets our eyes off the real issue: the importance of reconciliation, of living in light of the ideal…Instead of being all about the grounds of divorce, we should be all about preserving our marriages. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:31-32, Divorce, Adultery, & Remarriage appeared first on Sunfield.

God offers us the gift of his son to so fulfill and satisfy the deepest longings of our heart and we choose instead to spurn his greatest gift and settle for second-best. Rather than glutting ourselves on our relationship with Jesus, a kind of intimacy that you can’t desire enough, we look to satisfy our cravings on things that never ultimately satisfy…things like sex. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:27-30, Hell, Lust, & a Change of Heart appeared first on Sunfield.

Jesus calls us to remember how we offended other people, not how they offended us. Why? Because remembering how we have offended other people can make us slower to be offended by other people. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 15:21-26, Anger, Murder, & Reconciliation appeared first on Sunfield.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets in the sense that he is the one to whom they pointed, he is the person these Scriptures anticipate, he is the one they are all about. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:17-20, Fulfilling the Law & Entering the Kingdom appeared first on Sunfield.