Matthew – God’s Purpose
We were created with all kinds of inner mechanisms to see, touch, feel, taste, and hear. We were given intricate minds to understand and interpret our senses. We were created with hearts and souls at the center of our being to be filled with all the Creator has for us. How are we using what God gave us to love Him back and to love others?Jesus preaches a new way of thinking about our Heavenly Father who has not changed His Law, His Love or His Purposes for us.
Let’s use all our sense and senses to understand what Jesus is teaching and helping the crowd then and now to understand about God.
Matthew 6, NKJV
Continue the “Sermon on the Mountainside”
The Lamp of the Body22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT: How do we look? What or to whom are we looking to for wisdom, insight and the light of understanding? From what point of reference do we look and really see? Does His Light shine from hearts full of love for Him and others us as a holy beacon? Or is the darkness inside causing our lights to dim greatly?
You Cannot Serve God and Riches24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT: I cannot have lust for anything not of God. My focus is either on that thing or it is on God. We cannot hold on to grudges, savings, tithes, offerings, offenses, unforgiving hearts, or anything else that we tightly cling to with our being. We must let go of all in order to gain all of God. Who do we serve? Look at what we are holding onto so tightly. There is our answer.
Do Not Worry
25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
THEREFORE…is there for a reason. In the middle of Jesus’ teaching with direct life application he includes, “Don’t worry…about anything.” See and seek God FIRST each morning! All those things we worry about day to day and see as obstacles to living life seem to dissipates into the thin air, popping like bubbles in the wind. We realize immediately that God is greater than all our problems. We have a new perspective and a new way of thinking that goes beyond “positive thinking” as some call it to living a rich, relentless faith in the One who created all and is in all. When our hearts, minds and souls see only God first, the rest of life falls into place. In His time, in His Way, for His glory, In Jesus Name.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Our day is full of possibilities so we seek the fullness of You in us first. Fill us with all you know we will need for this day. All our trust, hope and faith is in You. You have all our love. Continue to lead and guide every thought and action. We look to You first.
In Jesus Name, Amen
Do Good to Please God
The Model Prayer
8 “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. 9 In this manner, therefore, pray:
Fasting to Be Seen Only by God
Lay Up Treasures in Heaven
Christ Fulfills the Law
Murder Begins in the Heart
Adultery in the Heart
Go the Second Mile
Matthew 5:13-16, NKJV
What happens when we lose our saltiness? What causes this to happen in our lives? I am a “lifer” in God’s church. Here is what I have noticed and heard in God’s people who begin to lose their “salt” as their lights dim, causing people to avoid them:
When we are going through a tough time we seldom think first of how we are blessed, right? We think and see only what is in front of us. We don’t think beyond the present circumstance or how God will use our current situation to actually bless us. What if we change our thinking for a moment or two and assume that we are blessed? No matter what, God has blessed us.
The Beatitudes
Imagine the scene. Someone in your family was born with a debilitating illness. You hear that there is Someone who can merely touch them and make them completely well. Wouldn’t you do anything and everything to get your loved one to this Person? You want to find out more. 
Better yet, Matthew tells the story in such a way that not only is everything previous to us completed in Jesus; WE are completed in Jesus! Every day we wake up in the middle of something that is already going on, that has been going on for a long time: genealogy and geology, history and culture, the cosmos–GOD. We are neither accidental nor incidental to the story. We get orientation, briefing, background, reassurance.
15 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
Four Fishermen Called as Disciples
TAG is a child’s game that requires no parts or electronics…only your body. T-A-G are initials for “touch and go”. When we play the game of TAG, the goal for the leader is to touch another person who will now become “it” so they can “touch” someone else. Jesus was now “it”. He began to preach, like John, with the same message, telling people what they must do to come back to God. Jesus began to touch people with the news, “The Kingdom of God is at hand!”, who was standing right in front of them! He also, like John, told them that if they repent of their sins, they will see and hear from God again. 
Jesus then shows us a great example of leadership 101 by tagging others to tell God’s story of repent and be saved. Because Jesus touched a lot of lives, becoming very popular as He moved about the region, those who were “tagged” with “Follow Me” quickly left normal life for a life with Jesus. They knew him and watched him at work. They left their work to follow him in His work.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
1. JESUS WAS LED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD within Him. 
3. JESUS KNEW THE WORD OF GOD AND KNEW WHEN TO USE IT. Do we know what God says so we can repeat with conviction and clarity as we combat this same enemy? God will help us to know His Word and know when to use it to our advantage against evil. His Holy Spirit will tell us exactly what to say when. God’s Holy Spirit helps us to know and understand God’s Word. David says, “Thy Word have I hid in my heart so that I might not sin against you.” Paul told new Christians, saved by grace though the blood of Jesus, to “Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Don’t leave home without His Word in your heart, mind and soul.
“Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.”
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, 9 and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. 10 And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit [a]and fire. 12 His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
John Baptizes Jesus
Dear Heavenly Father,
Matthew – God’s Purpose
The Jewish people forgot Who they were looking for after many years of not hearing from God. God told them a Savior would come. He told them what He would do for them and through them. Not only were they distracted, many missed Him completely. When Jesus arrived on earth, those in power were afraid of losing everything their own hands had built. But there were also many who found him. They found what and Who they were looking for in Jesus. Wise men still seek Him today.
3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
Dear Heavenly Father,
