Lessons February 2

Mic 6:6 What shall I bring to the LORD, the God of heaven, when I come
to worship him? Shall I bring the best calves to burn as offerings to
him? Mic 6:7 Will the LORD be pleased if I bring him thousands of sheep
or endless streams of olive oil? Shall I offer him my first-born child
to pay for my sins?
Mic 6:8 No, the LORD has told us what is good. What he requires of us
is this: to do what is just, to show constant love, and to live in
humble fellowship with our God.

Psalm 15 echoes this message.

1Co 1:22 Jews ask for signs, and Greeks look for wisdom,
1Co 1:23 but we preach the Messiah crucified. He is a stumbling block
to Jews and nonsense to gentiles,
1Co 1:24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, the Messiah
is God's power and God's wisdom.
1Co 1:25 For God's nonsense is wiser than human wisdom, and God's
weakness is stronger than human strength.

So with these three lessons as prelude we move on to Matthew 5 which
marks the beginning of the so-called Sermon on the Mount which begins
with the Beatitudes.

I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose-garden.

Most would not consider the conditions listed here to be blessings. If
nothing else the message here is that living the Christian life does not
make one immune to the pitfalls of human life.

For a parallel see Luk_6:20-26 which contains four blessings and four
woes. And for similar thinking see Ecc_3:1-8.

Happiness is not a thing to be sought or aspired to. We cannot buy it,
earn it, or manufacture it. There is no prescription that guarantees it.

If you've never known sorrow you probably have not fully experienced
joy. If you've never known pain then you don't understand relief. If
you've never been hungry or thirsty you don't understand true
satisfaction. If you've never experienced bone weariness you can't
possibly appreciate rest. Never been threatened then you don't know
security and safety. If you've never been sick you've never know the
restoration of health and well-being. Ask any soldier threatened with
imminent death how truly alive they feel.

This is not to say that one should go out and seek these conditions but
to acknowledge that for most of us they are part of life. The future
King of England gave his security detail the willies by spending the
night in a cardboard box on the streets of London on a frosty night so
that he might have a taste of what it is to be homeless. We don't need
to go to those extremes but then we probably don't live his pampered
lifestyle. We are asked to be aware of those who do suffer the
conditions here listed and to be the instruments of God's love in
helping to alleviate them.

Blessedness is a not a reward of right living, it is a by-product of the
Kingdom of Heaven.

2Co 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and
the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.

These things are not earned, they are freely given to all who embrace
the Christian Lifestyle.