TO ANOTHER LEVEL (PART 2)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

“If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”

Matthew 5:27-30

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Today, I am returning after a lengthy illness and needed respite to continue a series drawn from Jesus’ instructional Sermon on the Mount, His first extensive teaching which includes many primers for living this thing called life. This series centers on the section of Jesus’ sermon where He takes things commonly known as being sinful and addressed through God’s commands, and elevates those commands to another level, adding important requirements one was to follow in order to ensure obedience to the will of the Father. In the first devotion of this series, we saw Jesus look at the matter of murder and you may recall He not only addressed the matter itself but also the root causes of it such as anger or inciting another through name calling. In this second devotion, we find Jesus covering the matter of adultery. Look again at His words here:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

“If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”  Matthew 5:27-30

God’s people knew all too well that adultery was forbidden. It was one of their Master’s primary commandments brought down from Mount Sinai and shared with their ancestors:

“You shall not commit adultery.” Exodus 20:14

Nothing more needed to be said at that point. God demanded that His people not commit infidelity within marital relationships and He demanded that His people not commit infidelity in their relationship with Him. This tells us that the sin was just as much a problem more than 2,000 years ago as it is today. The matter of illicit affairs has been around as long as sin has been in play.

And yet, we know that God’s people didn’t follow this base command very well. We know because the scriptures are full of examples, none maybe more memorable than the actions of Israel’s beloved king, David, a man who had the reputation of being after God’s own heart but yet was not a perfect man. This was maybe no more evident than when David fixed his eyes on a woman named Bathsheba.

In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. 2 Samuel 11:1-4

Note here what got David in trouble. Adultery didn’t precede lust. Rather, it was the other way around as Israel’s king fixed his eyes on the beautiful, bathing Bathsheba. Such was the strength of his longing for her that he didn’t allow the fact that she was married to stop him. Lust overcame reason and covetousness transcended morality as a man who was once after God’s own heart fell victim to the sinful wanting of his own heart. And once David slept with Bathsheba, he started down a path of transgression that led to deceit, betrayal, and murder.

Now ask yourself why Jesus had to take the matter of adultery to another level.

For if David had only kept his lust in check, the marriage of Uriah and Bathsheba would have remained intact and David would have saved himself a ton of shame, guilt, anguish, and judgment from the God he turned from and disobeyed.

Friends, lust triggers adultery. It wrecked marriages and destroyed people in David’s time and it has continued to do so ever since. Thanks be to God for the words of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount as they serve to keep us from failing and falling into sexual sin.

All we need to do is be obedient to His teaching and allow Him to lead us to another level of righteousness, one above the sinful masses who refuse to follow His will and way.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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