Reading: Matthew 5-7
The Sermon on the Mount is a beautiful preaching that Jesus Christ pronounced, it is believed, on the mountain now known as the Mount of the Beatitudes. In this precious preaching, Jesus left us solid foundations to build our life and to change our perspective of it. I want, with this series of devotionals, to draw the attention of each one of you to the importance of the application of this beautiful preaching for our daily life, a preaching that is as valid today as it was when it was first taught:
But I tell them:
If we read carefully, in many portions of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) the words "they heard that it was said to them" and "but I tell them" are repeated. This meant that Jesus was making a change in relation to what was taught in the past, as the prophet Jeremiah said: "Behold, the days come, says Jehovah, in which I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house. of Judah Not like the pact I made with their parents. " Said change implied the following:
2.- The commandments of God were finding their fulfillment in Christ, by teaching the heart of these teachings and not just a religious obedience and ambiguous interpretations.
3.- They were no longer just commandments that had to be fulfilled because they were in the scriptures, they made sense and they came alive.
4.- The prophecies about a new covenant were being fulfilled.
The prophet Jeremiah explains the covenant that God would make with his people: "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law in his mind, and write it in his heart; and I will be their God, and they will be my people. And he shall teach no more to his neighbor, nor any to his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for everyone will know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their wickedness, and I will no longer remember their sin. "
These promises are what Jesus is fulfilling with his preaching on the Mount and with his saving work:
2.- By opening our hearts to the Word of God, we become God's people. This involves your protection, your care, your love, your help and your direction.
3.- We know God thanks to the teachings of Jesus Christ. His teachings are spread all over the world, in all languages, in all ages. The Kingdom of God and its knowledge will be extended until what Isaiah said is fulfilled: "For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."
4.- The saving work of Christ consisted in that through his death and resurrection our sins would be erased and all the nations would gather around Him to learn the knowledge of God.
Every time we read in the Bible that Jesus says "But I tell you" do not overlook it as one more phrase but remember all that it implies, all the references to passages of the Old Testament, all the fulfillments of prophecies that are being given and everything it means to us today.
GOD BLESS YOU
"Blessed is the man who did not walk in the counsel of the wicked,
He was not in the way of sinners,
Neither has he sat down in the seat of scoffers;
But in the law of the Lord is his delight,
And in his law he meditates day and night.
It will be like a tree planted by streams of water,
That bears fruit in its time,
And his leaf does not fall;
And whatever he does shall prosper"
Psalm 1: 1-3
