Jesus warns in Matthew 7 that the most dangerous kind of false teaching comes from one dressed like a sheep. By the time you realize there’s a wolf underneath, it’s frighteningly close. How do we keep alert when such sounds deceptively good?
In our sinful human nature we’re all hypocrites—quick to see the masks on everyone else, almost never on ourselves. Jesus meets that very tendency in Matthew 7:12 with a rule most people already know by heart: whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.
Even after turning our lives over to Christ, we can still pray as though God were there to serve our wants and protect our plans. In Matthew 7, Jesus says, “Ask, seek, and knock,” raising a searching question for daily prayer: When we belong to Him, what should we be asking our Father to give?
We want God’s wisdom, yet often what we really want is an advantage—something that makes us look right, strong, and worthy of respect. In James 3:13–17, wisdom from above takes a startlingly different shape: meek conduct, mercy, gentleness, and a willingness to be taught. What does that wisdom ask of us as we wait for Jesus to return?
We all load our suitcases for life with what the world promises will make us wise—predictions, solutions, human answers—yet when Revelation calls for wisdom to understand the beast, it’s asking something far more unsettling: whose wisdom are we actually following?
Most of us know what it feels like to pray with one eye on the people around us—wondering whether we sound holy enough, reaching for language we’d never use in ordinary conversation. In Matthew 6, Jesus warns us that prayer aimed at impressing an audience—human or divine—has already received its only reward.
We can do the right thing and still face an uncomfortable question: are we doing it because God called us, or because we want people to notice? In Matthew 6, Jesus assumes his people will give to those in need, then warns that even this good act can become a way of practicing righteousness “to be seen by others.”
Who sits on the throne of your life? We often allow our desires and pleasures to take complete devotion to our lives, but the truth is that Christ reigns above all things in our life.
Blessed are the merciful—it sounds really good when we are the ones receiving mercy. That call suddenly sounds a lot worse when we’re the ones called to show mercy. Jesus calls us to that mercy, against our natural inclination for payback.
Most of us have never gone without a meal, yet Jesus in Matthew 5:6 calls us to feel that ravenous, stomach-aching hunger—not for food, but for righteousness. Do we feel that craving?