Midnight Musings

As Christians, we tend to think that the most important thing we can do is to worship God.  In fact, that’s part of the response to the question of “What was I created to do?” where you’re supposed to reply, “To love and worship God forever.”

However, Christ wanted to make a point in the Sermon on the Mount about relationships, and he placed an interesting emphasis.

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;  Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.  — Matthew 5:23-24

What He was saying is this– you can’t worship Me correctly if you have a problem with your brother.  If there’s a known offense, if there’s something blocking your relationship with others, then you should get that right first.

We hear a lot of talk about the “horizontal” and “vertical” of relationships– they are interwoven such that a person that doesn’t have one relationship right will have problems with the other.

This is exactly what is meant when it says in the Epistles that if we offend our wives our prayers will be hindered.  It’s also behind the idea in John where it says that if you love God, you should love your brothers in Christ– for who can love someone they cannot see if they cannot even love someone that they can?

It’s not to say that Worship isn’t important– it is!  It’s to say that to get to the best possible worship you can, you have to be living right, and getting reconciled with a brother is a great step toward that.

Freedom– it’s what this contry was founded on, and is what is also slipping away very quickly.  With every move of this current government we are losing freedom.

The problem is that, though everyone may agree on this premise, few will agree on what would restore it.  There are two very different opinions about what way to go in our current government, and they do not seem to be resolvable.

In my opinion, the best way to resolved these problems is to find something that we can agree on (that we wish to be free to practice our differences instead of being forced into doing something we don’t want to do), and find a way to rally enough people to the cause that we could actually get something accomplished.

Looking at how it’s been done previously, the best bet it seems we have is through picking a single topic, crystalizing the message, and then organizing around that theme.

But what theme?

I originally thought that rallying around State’s Rights would be a big one– encouraging the adjustment of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which put upon the states anything that was passed at the federal level– and thereby making the Federal Government the obvious target.

But what about taxation?  I’d like to repeal the income tax amendment and take away the power to tax.

The question is, how do you take power away from a government except by force?

My last idea for a solution is to push for a legislative reset– put on the ballot that all incumbent’s terms are up when their current term is done.  Add to that the idea that they’re forbidden to take current staff members as staff, all districts must be redrawn by a bi-partisan commission, etc. and perhaps you could get some accountability back into government.

Perhaps then we could limit its power…

Matthew 5:21-22 states:

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:  But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

(more…)

Jesus was an amazing teacher.  I mean, He was God and all, but when you actually stop to muse some of the things that He said and commanded, it goes a whole lot further than the teachings we generally hear from the pulpit or the Epistles.

Have you ever spent time actually thinking through the Sermon on the Mount—or what it would be like if we actually followed through what what He stated there?

For my next few musings I’m going to take us through some of the “Ye Have Heard it Was Said” of the Sermon and how radical these statements really are, but by way of Introduction (and I encourage you to read Matthew 5-6 again by way of preparation for our study) I want you to think about the type of person Christ wanted us to be.  Think about how the actions that He commended would be received.