Matthew 4:17 through Matthew 7

Rose's interpretation of Jesus' teachings

When I read Scripture, I must understand the context to better understand what God is teaching me. Knowing what was said before and what is being said afterwards helps me to understand the specific point God is making. I just ask God to teach me and He does. So to better understand Jesus' first teachings while studying Matthew chapter 7, I read Matthew 4, beginning in verse 17, through chapter 7 as one conversation to understand the linear context of His points. The following are my words as Jesus taught me.

Following Jesus' 40-day fast in the desert and standing firm against Satan's temptation, Jesus began His ministry by preaching, "Turn around! You're going the wrong way to the Kingdom. It's right hear, follow me. I know the way, in fact, I am the Way. If you follow me, you too will gather people into God's Kingdom."

In one town, Jesus saw the size of His followers; it was a crowd. He climbed up on a hillside, sat down like rabbis do to teach and began to tell the people:

If you are not a proud or rich person, don't fret about what you don't have. Your poverty is not a curse from God. Your future home will be the Kingdom of heaven.

If you are mourning because you lost someone dear to you or because you denied your desires to serve someone else, you will be comforted and find peace in God. Your issue is not a curse from God.

If you don't seek glory or recognition from everyone around you, you will be recognized by God Himself and given the Kingdom of earth.

In these things, by sacrificing your desires and wants out of reverence for God and for other people, you are like God's children and as His children, He will honor you with the inheritance of an heir.

Do you hunger and thirst to see justice upheld, God's truths and rules to be the standards of our daily living? God will satisfy that hunger and quench that thirst.

For those who show mercy over ritual, who show compassion to others, God will also show you mercy and compassion.

If your heart is not polluted by this world and your desires are for God's will in your life, then know that you will see God one day.

For those who extend peace through forgiveness and second chances, those who swallow their pride to extend an apologetic hand even when you're the one who was hurt, those who don't put conditions on their love for others, you possess the unconditional (agape') qualities of your Father in heaven and He will call you His son or daughter.

If you're persecuted for upholding God's standards of truth, mercy, zeal for the Law, your home will be the Kingdom of God.

If you are unjustly persecuted, falsely accused of things, and people speak horribly about you saying you've done bad things because you've listened and followed me, look forward to your future happiness and celebrate that in your hearts. Remember, our religious leaders, our nation, mistreated God's prophets in the same manner. If they treated them horribly, they will treat you that way too.

Don't you know what you are in God's eyes? You are His salt and light in this world. As salt, you are the preservative of this world. God's working through you; and you who believe in and follow God are carrying Him through the world as you represent Him to those you know and meet. You bring God's love and standards into the world thereby helping to preserve this world from becoming completely spoiled and ruined. You're also light. A light that shows people the clear way to God. You don't hide a light under a bed because it won't provide light to your dark room. No, you put a light on a table so it lights the room and people can see where they're walking. So, don't hide your love for God, your knowledge about His truths and commands. Live it out so people can know God's truth, see the way to Him and praise Him.

For those of you who are not faithful followers of God's Law, the things I'm saying do not free you from following the Law. Please know that the Law will not disappear, its requirements will not vanish until everything God said He would do is accomplished exactly as He said. And if you teach anyone that it's OK to cut corners from the Law, you will lose your place - your rank - in the kingdom to come. However, if you practice what you preach, if you live it out daily out of reverent respect and love to God, you will be known as one of the great ones in God's Kingdom. The integrity of your actions must surpass that of the ritual actions of the religious leaders and the Law teachers.

On the other hand, you religious leaders who think your strict following of the Law, without reverent love and respect for God - without mercy and compassion - automatically provides you entrance into God's Kingdom. Think again.

You say you're a good person because you never murdered anyone. But don't you know that if you hate someone in your heart, you are no different than a murderer. The actions of murder comes from the hate in the heart. Not acting out on your hate does not make you innocent of hating. Your arrogance, selfishness and greed causes you to hate your brother telling and treating him as if he is not good for anything whatsoever. Because of this, you are subject to the judgment of God and will be thrown like garbage into the burning trash heap of Hell that resembles Gehenna.

So don't ask God to bless anything of yours, as if your ritual actions are accepting to God when you are harboring this hate in your heart. Go and reconcile with the person you hate, clear the hate from your heart, then come to God. This way your offerings to God will be something He enjoys.

Here is some basic, good advice. Settle any matter before it goes before a judge because you never know if the judgment will be in your favor. It may not go your way, you could be thrown into jail and now have to pay the full penalty for your crime of hate.

You think you're not an adulterer? You think that because you didn't cheat on your husband or your wife physically that you didn't commit adultery. Don't you realize that the act of adultery stems from the desires of your heart? If you lust after someone - looking at that person sexually wanting to have that person - you have committed adultery in your heart and therefore are guilty of adultery. Your actions are caused by the things you harbor in your heart.

You don't think that's the case? Say you think your hand has caused you to commit an offense like adultery. "I can't help myself because my hands enjoy this." Well, cut off your hand. Then when you continue to sin with only one hand, perhaps you'll realize that your inability to live to God's standards is a heart issue and not caused by anything else.

You think your divorce is acceptable because some religious leader acknowledged your divorce as justified with a piece of paper. And you think that God honors that piece of paper? If you have divorced your wife or husband for anything other than sexual infidelity prior to your wedding day, and if you both have remarried, both of you have become adulterers. The marriage covenant is not how man looks at marriage but how God views marriage. It's His standard.

You have been taught not to break your oaths or promises especially those promises you made to God. However, you have come up with an elaborate system of making promises only to provide you a loophole to avoid keeping them or to allow you to rationalize your feelings for not keeping your promises. In fact, you try to elevate the importance of your promises by swearing on the Bible with "so help me God" or "I swear to God." You can't make those types of promises. Do you own and control Heaven? Do you own and control God? Can you put up Heaven or God's throne as collateral for your broken promises? Instead, just let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. Be a man or woman of your word. Do what you intend to do.

You think the law allows you to enact a punishment on someone who has wronged you. By thinking the law says, "an eye for an eye" that this means if someone did something to you that you now have the right to enforce a punishment on that person. That law means that, when a punishment is to be metered out to a person, the punishment should fit the crime so that you will not abuse your authority by doubling the punishment for a crime committed against you. This does not give you the justification to punish someone who wronged you. Instead, how about you show compassion and mercy to the person who wronged you. How about you give that person double what they want to take from you. When you do this, two things may happen. Either that person is shocked by your Godly actions, considers what he has done and considers God. Or that person goes on his way and your Godly actions just added to his future judgment.

You have heard to love those who agree with you and hate your enemies and you think that is justified by the Law. In fact, the Law states to love God completely and to love those around you as you would choose to care for yourself. I'm telling you that you should choose to love your enemies and pray for them. This is the very character of God and if you do this, you will be considered sons and daughters of God.

Look at God. He chooses to love you showing that love through mercy, compassion, tenderness, forgiveness, patience and provides for your daily and every needs without condition on whether you return Him love. He gives you many chances and rarely lets you taste the eternal repercussions of your sinful actions. You can see this in simple things like the weather where God sends rain on everyone whether people believe and follow Him or not. The sun shines on the entire earth and not just on the people who follow God. This is agape' (unconditional) love and your Father in Heaven is the definition of agape' love. What is the quality of your love if you only love and care for the people who love you in return? Even the people you know to be rotten and evil are capable of showing love to their family and friends. If you only show love and kindness to those who are like you, how are you different from the evil people? Instead, try to love perfectly like God does.

However, when you are living out your love and obedience to God, live it out in ways that are not self seeking of recognition by others. Check your heart. Are you doing things out of love and respect for God or are you doing things for recognition by others? If you are doing things to be recognized by others, then you will have no reward in Heaven.

When you give to the needy, don't do it for all of the recognition benefits. Look at the temple priests. They blow trumpets right before they drop their contributions into the collection basket. The trumpet gets the attention of the people so the people will see the priest making their contribution. Then you people say, "Oh how wonderful. Look at the priests caring for the needy." You didn't acknowledge God in any of this. The priests wanted to make sure people saw what they did; they didn't quietly give knowing God saw them. I'm telling you, those priests received the reward they are going to get and forfeited the reward of God. Don't worry about whether people see you doing caring things. Know that God sees you and be content with that.

And when you pray, don't pray out loud in public for reasons to be recognized and praised by those around you. Look at the temple priests. They like to make a show of how religious they are pretending to run to the temple, filled with prayer for God, then stopping along the way acting as if their prayers are just spilling out of them before they can get to the temple. Really? Did they pray for the needy person they passed on the street? Did they pray for the lame person laying on the side of the road begging? No, their prayers were for themselves and not for God's purposes. Instead, prayer is between you and God. It's a conversation between you and your Father in heaven. He knows where you are. He sees you. He hears you. Speak to Him and He will hear you and reward you. And don't pray like the followers of other religions. They pray as if they have to work themselves into some sort of spiritual state to be heard. They babble. They sway and jump. They shout and holler. Is this how you talk with your parent? Then why do you think this is the way to talk to your Father in heaven? Your Father knows what you need before you even speak, so simply speak from your heart and He will hear you.

This is what a heartfelt prayer should include:

Father - Dad - in heaven; your Name is holy and sacred. Help your Name be holy and sacred to me because you are worthy of that respect.

One day your Kingdom will come here on earth just as it exists in heaven now. Begin today in my heart. Rule over my heart; my desires and my will.

You know what my day holds; I only think I know what's going to happen. My plans are short sited and arrogant. So, please give me what I need for the day in both the physical and spiritual provisions. Please don't give me more than I need otherwise, I may become smug thinking I made it through the day on my own abilities and strength. Don't give me too little otherwise, I may steal, cheat or lie in order to make it through the day and therefore misrepresent You.

Forgive me of my inabilities to live by Your standards; forgive me my sins against You. Forgive me by the same measure I have forgiven others who have wronged me. However Father; that scares me because I am unable to forgive magnanimously and I don't want to be held to even my standard. Instead, help me to forgive like You do, so that when You forgive me of my sins, Your forgiveness is more than I deserve.

Please don't allow me to be led astray by Satan and by my evil desires. Rescue me from the evil one and the evil I am prone to do.

Just remember, when you forgive people who have wronged you - when you have allowed those people to start anew with you and your relationship - then your Father in heaven will also forgive you in the same manner when you sin against Him. That should be the quality of your ability to forgive.

When you fast to spend time with God, don't look like you're in discomfort like the actors do, who call themselves temple priests. They disfigure their faces, moan and groan so people will see them and ask what they're doing. Their replies? "I'm fasting for God." They're just looking for recognition. Instead, get dressed, do your hair, shave/put on your makeup and fast in silence. After all, the fast is between you and God. He sees you. He knows what you're doing; that should be enough.

Don't spend your life working to buy stuff. The more stuff you buy, the more stuff you must care for. Then people want to hang out with you because of your stuff - because of the benefits you provide to them - not because they want to be with you. Thieves know you have stuff and then they come to steal it. Your bills pile up and now you're a slave to your stuff.

The catalogs come in the mail and you see more stuff you want and you say, "I need this. I've worked hard and deserve this stuff. My neighbor has this thing, so I want it too." You see advertisements everywhere you look that beg for your attention and you willingly give your attention because you want that stuff. You know the saying garbage in, garbage out? If you feast your eyes on all of the stuff, then that's what you'll want all the time. You will produce nothing but garbage in your life. If you fill yourself with darkness, then how dark and disturbing will your life be? You cannot serve two bosses. Either you will enjoy one boss and hate the other or you will work for one boss and resent the other. You cannot serve both God and stuff.

So, don't worry about your life in terms of stuff - living to buy the latest trendy clothes, the tastiest food, the best wine. Life is more than fads, trends and being seen as one of the beautiful people. Life is more than being popular and desired by others. Look at the birds. They don't have to plant crops in order to eat. They don't have to harvest or store food. Yet, your Father in heaven makes sure the birds have food to eat. Aren't you more valuable to God than the birds? And with all of your worrying, can you permanently keep your hair from turning grey? Can you add an hour onto your lifetime?

Why do you worry about buying the right clothes? Look at the day lilies. Have you ever seen anything so beautifully decorated? The day lilies look like they have been individually painted with colors, spots, designs; they are awe inspiring to behold. Solomon, the wealthiest man ever to walk the earth, never looked as opulent as these lilies. If God can clothe the grasses with day lilies, how much more can God clothe you? Where is your trust in God? Where is your faith and reliance in God? So don't go around saying, "If I can't have that outfit, I'll die." Or, "If I can't eat at that restaurant, I'm nothing." Instead, seek after the things of God first. Make God's purposes and standards first in your life. He'll meet your needs for clothing, food and drink. Don't worry about your future in those terms. Each day has enough trouble to occupy your thoughts.

Don't compare others to yourself or yourself to others. Don't hold people to standards you can't hit. You rationalize your inability to hit your standards but, won't allow others around you to slip as they try to live. Remember, you will be judged by God in the manner you judged others.

Why do you look at someone's life and say, "Let me give you advice to improve your life. Let me direct your life," insinuating that you are a know-it-all, better than the other person and capable of directing his or her life. You actor! Take the two-by-four out of your eye first, then you can see the speck of dust in your friend's eye. Concentrate on your life and your inabilities to live to God's standards. Then when you realize who you are and how to live, you can come along side your brother or sister and walk beside them as a partner helping each other stay the course, carrying one another's burdens.

One the other hand, don't give a stray dog the sacred meat from your offering. Don't give pigs your pearl necklace. This just means that when you're speaking with non-believing people, know that they will not understand the deep, holy things of God. If you try to tell them right off the bat that they are sinners and the reasons why, those people will simply tear you apart. They cannot see the value in what you are saying. Instead, pray for them. Walk along side of them to show them God in how you live.

Ask and continue to reverently ask for the kingdom of God, for you and for others. Seek and continue to reverently seek for the way to the kingdom of God. Knock and continually knock on the kingdom's door and the door will be opened to you and to the others you pray for. This is God's heart.

You're a parent, right? When your child comes to you and say he's hungry, do you give him a rock instead of a piece of bread? Do you give him a snake instead of a piece of fish? Do you give him a scorpion instead of an egg? No! So, if you who inherently living outside of God's will (you're evil) can provide for your child with love, don't you think God will do even more? So remember that when you do things for others, when you request things from God for others; request as if you're asking for yourself. This standard of living sums up what is taught in the Law and by the prophets.

There is one way to enter heaven. Enter that way. It is the narrow and difficult way. People will say there are other ways and those ways look easy but they are simply a highway to hell. There is one and only one way to God and His kingdom. Out of all of the people who will walk the earth, few choose to enter heaven through the one and only way. (I am the Way.)

Watch out for false prophets and religious leaders. Hey, they will look like Godly people. They will sound like Godly people. Some will look and sound like followers of mine but, they are ravenous wolves wearing a sheep's costume. In the case of determining religious leaders, this is when you should discern (judge). You are to be fruit inspectors. You're not going to go to an orange tree to pick apples. You're not going to go to a tree that always bears bad, unripened or spoiled fruit to pick sweet, rip and good fruit. So if the religious leaders preach God's lessons but continue to live entirely different, run from them.

Not everyone who goes to church and says, "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom. Just because you go to church and hear the Word, doesn't mean you're automatically granted entrance into God's kingdom. Just like standing in a barn doesn't make you a cow. The only people that will be granted access to God's kingdom are those who hear the lessons of God and go out and live those lessons, to the best of their ability, out of love and respect for God. Those that hear God, believe in God, love God completely and do the Father's will are heirs to the kingdom.

On the day when God grants access to His kingdom, many will say, "Lord, Lord! Didn't we go to your church? Didn't we give tithes? Didn't we pray for a miracle that you granted?" And because they did these things for their personal benefit and recognition, because they didn't live out of appreciation for God's mercy and provisions, God will say, "I never knew you as my son or daughter. You are not allowed in. Go away!"

Therefore, those that hear my words (my lessons) AND put those lessons into daily practice, they are the wise ones. These wise people are like a home builder who digs his foundation down to anchor it onto bedrock. In life there are always storms - I'm not promising a storm-free life. So when the storm comes, the rain pours, the stream rises and wind whips against the house, the house will stand because its builder anchored the foundation to bedrock.

However, those that hear my words (my lessons) and walk away not doing anything with that knowledge, not putting the lessons into practice, these people are foolish. They are like a home builder who builds on the sandy banks of a stream, or on the dunes of a barrier island. When the storm comes, the stream rises, the wind whips against the house and the house cannot stands against the storm because it is anchored to shifting sands. If the hurricane comes, the waves crash and wash the house off of the sand dune. Great is the loss to the homeowner. Don't be that homeowner.

When Jesus was done teaching the people, they were amazed because He taught with the authority of someone designated by God Himself to teach. As if He knew God personally.

Notes from Matthew 5

Introduction summary of Matthew 1 through 4

The Gospel according to Matthew is written by Levi the tax collector who writes the good news truth about Jesus and who He is, to the Jewish reader. The first few chapters, you can almost hear Matthew’s excitement about the revelation of Jesus as Matthew spends much of his time showing Jesus’ connection and fulfillment of Jewish (Old Testament) Law and prophecy. We see the reaction of people to Jesus. Those who should have known who Jesus is were either indifferent or angry at his appearance. Those who should not have recognized Him did, and reverently and diligently went to see Him; some at great personal expense.

In Matthew’s account, we see the devotion of Jesus’ earthly parents to God, to His commands, and their desire to be associated with the Law. Yet, we will see how they will continually be ostracized by the Law keepers and their selection (as the Messiah’s parents) questioned.

His childhood skipped in Matthew’s account, we then see Jesus at His baptism where He will identify Himself with the human race – so later He can be our perfect substitute – and we see the Trinity clearly. God Himself states that Jesus is His Son. The Holy Spirit is visible as it descends to rest upon Jesus and Jesus Himself coming out of the water. If there was any doubt in Jesus’ mind as to who was His Father, the doubt was erased at this time. Jesus now knows He is the very Son of God and the fulfillment of Law and prophecy. With that also comes the great responsibility of testifying to the truths of God and eventually being the perfect Passover Lamb of God. Heavy stuff to consider.

The Holy Spirit now urges Jesus into the dessert for a time of fasting. Jesus doesn’t know how long the fast will be. He doesn’t know that Satan will show up to test Him. We know it was 40 days because Jesus told His disciples it was 40 days and spoke of the encounter with Satan at the end of that fast. And what does Satan do? He tried to get Jesus to questions Himself, question who He is, not listen to God, disobey God and act on Satan’s wishes. With what? The same distractions he derails us – feel good, look good, have goods.

Jesus, knowing the very truths of God, accurately and in context, is able to stand firmly on God’s truths and stay firm on God’s course. He now emerges from the desert knowing that He, as man, is ready to move forward in the ministry God called Him to fulfill.

So what does Jesus say to launch His ministry? “You’re looking for God’s kingdom in the wrong places; you’re going in the wrong direction; you’re going the wrong way. Turn around! I’ll show you. Follow me; I know the way! In fact, I AM the WAY!”

Which leads us to Matthew 5 where Jesus says, “You thought the Kingdom of God was that; It’s really this.” Many of the characteristics of the Kingdom and the people of the Kingdom can be explained simply by saying that Kingdom people Love God, Love Others and Die to Self Interests. He explains that we are called to be the preservative of this world – the salt. If we were gone, then the world would in fact deteriorate into complete debauchery without our presence – without our bodies carrying God’s Will into the world – as a preservative sustaining it long enough for those who will choose God to actually choose Him. We are the light in this world where we show people the Way to God. “Jesus! This way!”

Jesus says He didn’t come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. So, for those who thought He was saying, “Hey anything goes,” he said no; the Law still holds true. For those who thought the Law ruled supremely, even to the point of religious rituals with exclusion and judgment of people; Jesus said no – God desired heartfelt actions of compassion and mercy over rituals and sacrificial offerings.

Then Jesus points to the heart of it all. He infers that there is no difference between someone who has thought about doing an action and the one who did the action. For the heart – your desires – are what trigger your actions. You can almost hear people saying, “I’m a good person. I’m going to heaven because I never”:

• Murdered anyone
• Didn’t cheat on my wife or husband
• Got a justified divorce

Jesus’ response was, “If you think that’s the case – you think it’s your hand that caused you to sin – then cut if off. When you continue to sin with only one hand, then you’ll know your sin was not caused by your hand but by your heart.” You can hear Adam saying, “God, it’s that woman you gave me; that’s why I sinned. It wasn’t my fault.”

We then read Jesus saying to be true to your word. There is no need to make elaborate oaths, putting up as collateral something you don’t own like God’s throne. Instead, let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.

So, you’ve been wronged by somebody and yes, the Law states “make the punishment fit the crime. Don’t make the punishment double the penalty of the crime – keep it as an eye for an eye.” However, why not try to let the person who hurt your feelings, or extorted something from you, be forgiven - don't justify yourself to hold it against the person and harbor ill feelings toward this person - then pray for that person. It’s easy to love the people who like you. Instead try loving the people who don’t like you. Now that’s the unconditional (agape’) love of your Father. When you can do that, then you possess the quality of love your Father in Heaven has for you.

Again, heavy stuff… but very practical, no nonsense explanations from Jesus.

Scripture:

Matthew 25:31-40; 9:13

Hosea 6:6

Leviticus 19 = 19:2; 19:5; 19:12; 19:17; 19:18

Leviticus 6:1-7

James 5:12; 2:14-26

Ecclesiastes 5:1-2; 7:1-5

Genesis 3:12

Isaiah 6:5; 66:2-3

Psalms 37:11; 51:16-17

Revelation 21:1

John 14:15