THURSDAY May 25th
Matthew 5:27-32
vv27a 28a ‘You have heard that it was said . . . But I say to you.’
You will recall that I said that a few times in these verses in chapter 5 Jesus says ‘You have heard it said . . . but I say to you’. In the section I have highlighted today it is to do with relationships that are concerned with the way we think or feel about someone else, firstly Jesus deals with lust, then he deals with marriage or more particularly divorce. He is very clear that lust is an unacceptable behaviour and that divorce is also unacceptable except in certain circumstances. In other words our sexual behaviour, marriage and the sanctity of marriage is important.
What I want to express here in todays devotion is that just as Jesus used the phrase to his audience back then while speaking to them from the mountain, ‘You have heard it said . . . but I say unto you’, we can bring it up to date for the times in which we are living in. For in regard to marriage and sexual relationships we are hearing it said, and we are continually hearing it said in our modern society that this is okay, that is okay, almost anything now goes, you can be with whoever you want to be with, you can flit about from one to another, you can have multiple relationships, you can ‘marry’ someone of the same sex etc.’ But we need to listen not to what is being said by the society that is around us, but rather listen to what God has said in his word.
His word must be our guide, for unless we follow what He as our Creator has said, and live according to the pattern which he has design for sexuality, morality and relationships we cannot truly be the salt and light that Jesus has just spoken about in the previous verses.
May God help each one of us to live with purity in these things, and if anyone is struggling with sexual issues or struggling in a marriage, or living in any way that does not confirm to biblical morality, seek out help and ask God to grant you wisdom in putting these things right.
Perhaps it is a good opportunity to express that as a Church we only recognise marriage as being that between a man and a woman. The Bible says in Genesis 2:24 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’ and Jesus repeated this as we see in both Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:7.
May God help us to maintain, hold fast to and live up to that which is his divine design for his creation.