May 21
The Inhospitable Heart
When you enter … say, ‘Peace be with you.’ ... if they don’t welcome you it will be better for the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah than for the people of that town.
Matthew 10:12,13,15 (NCV).
Wow! There seems to be a subtle message in Jesus’ words to His disciples. In that day, everyone knew of God’s fire and brimstone judgment on the vile and wicked individuals of Sodom and Gomorrah. In this passage, Jesus is relaying that the people with inhospitable and hardened hearts will suffer more on Judgment Day than the grossly unrighteous.
Who were these people who would not welcome the Son of God’s disciples? Try the religious crowd—the Pharisees and their followers. They were too good for this. They had no need for Jesus, or repentance, or the kingdom He offered. They liked their unforgiving, critical, petty version of holiness better. The harder judgment will fall on them for believing they were better than everyone else.
It gives me pause. I have to ask, do we look down our self-righteous noses at others—the imperfect, the ugly, the underperformers? Do we think our sins are less offensive to God? That the gross sin of a child molester or someone who sells their body cheap to buy drugs, or the person who steals from the weak and elderly is so much worse than our small errors when compared with the absolute majesty and holiness of our All-knowing God? Are we so quick to judge others but not ourselves? ... Am I like this?
Jesus has made it all too clear: the speck of dust in the sinner’s eye is nothing compared to the log protruding from the eye of the self-righteous.
It makes we want to get on my knees and beg God’s forgiveness.
Search my heart, O God. Fix my thoughts, my attitudes, that I may be more helpful, more forgiving, a man after Your own heart. Help me Lord, to live in peace with others. Amen.
The Inhospitable Heart
When you enter … say, ‘Peace be with you.’ ... if they don’t welcome you it will be better for the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah than for the people of that town.
Matthew 10:12,13,15 (NCV).
Wow! There seems to be a subtle message in Jesus’ words to His disciples. In that day, everyone knew of God’s fire and brimstone judgment on the vile and wicked individuals of Sodom and Gomorrah. In this passage, Jesus is relaying that the people with inhospitable and hardened hearts will suffer more on Judgment Day than the grossly unrighteous.
Who were these people who would not welcome the Son of God’s disciples? Try the religious crowd—the Pharisees and their followers. They were too good for this. They had no need for Jesus, or repentance, or the kingdom He offered. They liked their unforgiving, critical, petty version of holiness better. The harder judgment will fall on them for believing they were better than everyone else.
It gives me pause. I have to ask, do we look down our self-righteous noses at others—the imperfect, the ugly, the underperformers? Do we think our sins are less offensive to God? That the gross sin of a child molester or someone who sells their body cheap to buy drugs, or the person who steals from the weak and elderly is so much worse than our small errors when compared with the absolute majesty and holiness of our All-knowing God? Are we so quick to judge others but not ourselves? ... Am I like this?
Jesus has made it all too clear: the speck of dust in the sinner’s eye is nothing compared to the log protruding from the eye of the self-righteous.
It makes we want to get on my knees and beg God’s forgiveness.
Search my heart, O God. Fix my thoughts, my attitudes, that I may be more helpful, more forgiving, a man after Your own heart. Help me Lord, to live in peace with others. Amen.
posted by Craig Soderquist at 10:22 PM
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