Today Daily Devotional

Let’s look a little deeper into the Lord’s Prayer today. God our Father, who loves us and wants a relationship with us, also calls us to do his will. That’s because he wants the best life possible for us, even if we can’t always see that.

It’s not easy to surrender ourselves to God’s will or control. I like going to church, and I like finding comfort in God’s promises. But I’m not always eager to follow God’s will in my life. I usually just want to do what I want to do.

But with that attitude I can end up settling for fleeting, earthly treasures rather than the full life that God wants for me. And then I fail to recognize that it is better if God’s kingdom comes instead of mine.

When I follow Jesus’ example, however, and I pray for God’s kingdom to come, I’m opening my life to be filled by the sovereign God of heaven and earth. I’m inviting God to do whatever he thinks is best, even if it means change. Or discomfort. It’s a pledge to pursue God’s purposes above all else.

Are you prepared to pray for that? Are you ready to pray that God’s will be done, even if that means changing jobs or giving money away or spending time with someone you don’t like? What are you willing to risk in order to see God’s will done?

Maybe you have heard of the Lord’s Prayer, which Jesus begins to teach his followers in our passage for today. When it comes to praying, sometimes we might think we have to find just the right words, or to say things in just the right way, for God to hear us.

But Jesus shows us that isn’t the case. God is not some remote figure who must be awakened or impressed. There are no magic words; there is no secret formula to memorize in order to get God’s attention. In fact, God is eager to hear from us, and he is ready to welcome us at any time.

That’s because God, the Lord and Creator of the universe, is our Father. He is loving and attentive, and he understands the needs of our hearts.

Because of that, it’s safe to come into God’s presence just as we are. We can pray with confidence, even without knowing a lot about our Father, or knowing what to say. We can enter God’s presence in prayer because he wants to receive us and hear us, just as a loving parent wants with their child. God wants to spend time with us always, even when we are emotional or struggling.

Our loving Father who is in heaven invites us into his presence. To pray. And listen. To have a relationship with him. That’s what Jesus has come to offer.

We like to be recognized for doing the right thing. Some­times we do something nice for our spouse, but often it’s because we expect a favor in return. Or we might give money for a worthy cause or praise someone for their work, but then we also tell others so that they will know about it. Sometimes we might also put in an extra effort when certain people are around because we want them to think well of us.

This was a rampant problem in the community where Jesus was teaching. The Pharisees and other religious leaders often made a show of their “righteousness,” giving to the poor in visible ways or bragging about their obedience to the law. Such behavior might draw praise or attention from ­others, but Jesus saw it for what it was. Although these people appeared to be close to God, their motives were selfish, and their hearts were actually far away from him.

Let’s pay attention to our actions and think about how often we do things to get the attention or praise of others. Jesus knows how tempting it is to find our worth in the approval of other people. In this passage he challenges us to fight that temptation by keeping a low profile, and to do acts of kindness and generosity in secret as much as possible.

It’s easy to love people who think like us and treat us well. But if we want to be like God, who gives sunshine and rain to provide for everyone—­whether good or bad—we have to learn to be more generous than most people.

Jesus wants us to understand that the way we treat people who are rude, obnoxious, lazy, selfish, or unkind reflects the state of our relationship with God. It’s one thing to get along with our friends. But the way we treat the people who drive us crazy matters too, because it’s part of our witness to the scandalous grace of the gospel.

In order to do this, we have to start with an accurate understanding of who we are. You and I are sinners. We have been selfish. We have done wrong. We have hurt ­others. We have failed to fulfill our responsibilities. Much of Matthew 5 has been showing us just how deep our sin runs.

And yet even though all of this is true, how does God feel about us? How does God respond to us?

While there may be consequences for our actions, ultimately God chooses not to lash out or to write us off. Instead, God extends mercy and compassion and stays in relationship with us. And he calls us to go and do likewise—even to people who have become our enemies.

What do you do when your spouse forgets to pay a bill on time? Or when your friend makes an insensitive comment? Or when another driver cuts you off? What is your first instinct?

Maybe you are the kind of person who wants to fight back when someone hurts you or makes things difficult for you. You raise your voice. You make personal attacks.

Or maybe you’re not the type to lash out. Instead, you give people the silent treatment. You stop returning texts or you walk out of the room and refuse to discuss any more.

The desire to retaliate is actually rooted in a God-given desire for justice. We understand intuitively that people should be held accountable for things that they’ve done. But our ideas of justice are easily tainted by our own anger and our feelings of self-righteousness.

In this passage Jesus leads us in a better way, inviting us to let go of revenge and to trust God as our defender. God sees and knows our suffering. He longs for justice to be done. And in his mercy, God also desires that all people would turn from sin, come to faith, and have new life in him.

Oath-making isn’t common in many cultures today.

But have you ever taken a “sick day” from work when you were not sick? Have you ever told your friend that you forgot to do something you said you would do, although you really just didn’t feel like doing it? Have you ever told a coworker that you have finished a project—and then you hurry to finish it quickly, hoping they won’t notice?

We bend and stretch the truth all the time. Pastor Tim Mackie of the Bible Project calls this “airbrushing” the truth. Just as a photo studio might airbrush a person’s photo to remove blemishes or wrinkles, so we tend to “airbrush” the boring, inconvenient, or incriminating parts of our lives in order to make ourselves look better.

We do this out of our insecurity. We don’t trust that we will be liked and accepted the way we are—with all of our faults, inconsistencies, and boring ­stories.

But Jesus is clear in this passage. Our yes should be yes. And our no should be no. As God’s distinct people in the world—as salt and light—we know that our words are part of our witness.

Jesus is calling us to be people of integrity, knowing that we are secure in God’s love for us as his children.

God’s design for marriage is for a husband and wife to leave their families and form something new. This involves much more than a contract, or even a commitment. A married couple makes a covenant together, committing to love one another with the same gracious and undeserved love that God has shown to us.

Our model for marriage is Christ himself, who loved us and gave his life for us. But for us, this kind of self-giving love is not easy to imitate. Marriage calls for learning and growing, and it reveals the limits of our kindness and generosity, often exposing our selfishness and pride. Unfortunately, many Chris­tians struggle in silence to love their spouses. And division and conflict can lead to divorce.

In an imperfect world, divorce is a reality we must contend with. Adultery, abuse, or abandonment by a spouse can break a marriage beyond repair. And people who are fighting to keep their marriage must be encouraged, supported, and prayed for by the church.

We must also create spaces for open and honest conversation where people can process their hurts and hardships alongside their brothers and sisters. People who have experienced the pain of divorce are deserving of grace, care, and empathy as they discern God’s will for their lives moving forward.

I love walking through a bike shop and “window shopping.” Never mind that I already own a road bike and an off-road bike. Never mind that I have nowhere to put another bike. Never mind that I have a family to care for. I enjoy the fantasy of owning something new.

On the one hand, this can be harmless fun—who doesn’t like to daydream about new stuff? But on the other hand, my desires can easily go too far, and I have to guard my heart against doing something unwise that could hurt my family and our relationships.

Jesus understands that sometimes we might be around an attractive person and feel tempted to “window shop.” When he speaks of lust in this passage, it’s more than just noticing someone—it’s a look or a fantasy with intent. It means treating a human being as an object we’d like to have.

In today’s world, that kind of fantasizing is called normal and is even encouraged. But Jesus explains that it violates God’s commands.

When we lust after another person, we violate them, ourselves, and our current or future marriage. We take a part of our heart that belongs to our spouse and give it to someone else. So Jesus warns us that we must avoid temptation and keep our hearts in line with his.

In this passage Jesus frames anger in terms of the sixth commandment (“You shall not murder,” Exodus 20:13), knowing that most of his listeners would think they hadn’t broken it. But rather than congratulating them for being obedient, Jesus explains how they have violated the spirit behind the command.

He does this by giving two examples of angry speech that are judgmental or condemning. The Aramaic word Raca can be translated as “idiot” or “stupid”—it’s a way of questioning the mind of someone who has wronged you. The second word Jesus uses, which is translated as “fool,” is a judgment on another person’s character.

It may seem like a stretch to compare angry speech with physical murder, but Jesus wants us to understand the power of our words. Angry speech is destructive against another person made in God’s image. It can push them into shame or self-loathing, rather than leading to fruitful repentance. And oftentimes our angry words create a cycle of retaliation and escalating anger.

So we must learn to control our anger and not to speak rashly. Thankfully, through Christ, we can find the grace to root anger and its hurtfulness out of our lives, and to become the peacemakers we are called to be.

Imagine that you were living in the first century and Jesus had just come to your village. If you heard Jesus claim to be “one with the Father,” or if you heard him challenge the religious leaders, how do you think you would have reacted?

Would you be interested—or perhaps even excited—by Jesus’ teachings? Would you be delighted to see the Pharisees (the religious leaders) put in their place?

Or would you have been skep­ti­cal of this stranger who claimed to speak for God?

As Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, he understood that he was speaking to a mixed crowd. Many of the people in the crowd were Jewish, while some came from other cultures and traditions.

In this passage Jesus shows that he wanted everyone to understand his right to teach and to gather followers as the promised Messiah.

The entire Old Testament story, from Genesis to the Ten Commandments, and from the time of the kings to the exile and beyond, pointed to the Messiah who would come to restore God’s people and God’s world. Jesus had come to bring life as it was always meant to be lived in relationship with God.

Today we still have to decide if Jesus can be trusted to bring us the words of life. Has he come in fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets? Or does he merely speak for himself?