HAVE YOU MURDERED?

Can I pray for you in any way?

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In Christ, Mark

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

"You shall not murder." Exodus 20:13

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of Hell." Matthew 5:21-22

"Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him." 1 John 3:15

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

As we have stepped through each of the first five commandments, I think you would agree that none of us have fared well in upholding them properly. At least for me, I have found myself falling before the Lord and giving thanks for His amazing grace and forgiveness, praying He would continue to refine me toward becoming more the person He wants me to me.

Maybe you have felt likewise.

Well today, we come to the sixth commandment and I found myself thinking:

"YES! Finally a commandment that I have kept and not violated because I know I have never murdered anyone."

And that would be true if it wasn’t for one problem, that being content found elsewhere in God’s Word.

For we see that Jesus, God's one and only Son, chimed in on this subject of murder in His first formal public teaching known as the Sermon on the Mount. A majority of those listening, whether they had formally become disciples or not, were definitely in the know when it came to the Law that God had handed down to Moses. And with that, I'm sure they too felt they were innocent of murder as they sat and listened to Jesus teach.

But then Jesus took things to a whole different level, saying something that had to get everyone's attention.

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of Hell." Matthew 5:21-22

Think about the implications of this for a moment.

Jesus is essentially saying that if someone gets angry at another or insults them, it is akin to murder.

Whoa!

Jesus is Truth, perfect Truth (John 14:6) and so everything He says is true and given what He said, what person would be innocent of murder when measured against the standards He set.

Indeed, when it comes to this commandment of God, no one is innocent. And then, as if we needed any other validation, we come to this from 1st John, chapter 3:

"Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him." v.15

The Word of God, considered in its entirety as it always should be, convicts all unless a person can honestly say that they have never been angry at another or held hatred for someone. If that’s you, I would like to meet you because you would be the first one I have even met who hasn't failed in this area.

So what are we to do with these passages from the Word of God?

We need to embrace them, give thanks for them, learn from them, and repent over them if we haven’t done so already.

You see, Jesus knew that the root of murderous actions often came from unchecked anger or name calling instigation or both. If you treat the root cause of an illness, you can cure it and here our Savior was doing just that on a spiritual level. The hoped outcome was that if anger, hatred, and insulting were removed then the act of murder could be disempowered and stopped. This is why our Lord placed so much emphasis on emotions we see in play every day.

The bottom line is that Christians need to model Christ and when we look at the landscape of His life, there were no murderous thoughts inside Him. In fact, He didn’t preach hatred but rather love, telling us through His own words that the second greatest commandment was to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

Given all this, what does God see when He looks into your heart today? Would He see that you are harboring anger and/or hatred for anyone?

And what does He witness when you are living out life? Does He witness you calling people derogatory names, smearing them with your words?

If any of these things are present, there needs to be resolution and the Lord is ready to answer your repentance before helping you overcome these feelings in the future. All you need to do is fall on your knees, confess your sin, and ask the Lord to take your sinful feelings away, replacing them with the love of Jesus, the only love that is true and pure, a love that would have us be willing to die for others, not kill them.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.