{"id":9926,"date":"2021-10-07T06:37:24","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T11:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-matthew-5\/"},"modified":"2021-10-02T13:06:23","modified_gmt":"2021-10-02T18:06:23","slug":"devotional-on-matthew-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-matthew-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Matthew"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_15648\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15648\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/P5029292.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/P5029292-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" class=\"size-large wp-image-15648\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/P5029292-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/P5029292-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/P5029292-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/P5029292-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/P5029292.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15648\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Arches National Park, Utah<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Perfect Sermon<\/p>\n<p>Matthew 5: Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.<\/p>\n<p>In one glorious Sermon Jesus sums up the life to which God calls us.  In every word we hear pure gold.  It\u2019s in retrospect that I realize that this beautiful, perfectly constructed Sermon challenges me at every level of my life.  This chapter of the Sermon touches on everything from how to be blessed, to heavy topics like murder, adultery and divorce.  Jesus deals with the promises we make and our relationships with our enemies.  Obviously, the religion he teaches isn\u2019t merely about \u201cme and God.\u201d  Just about every word in this perfect Sermon is about \u201cme and you.\u201d  It concerns my relationship with people I like (and maybe like too much according to the section on adultery) and people I don\u2019t like (I\u2019m to settle things with my old enemy quickly before things get even worse).  He sums up this first part of the Sermon by teaching me to live \u201cgenerously and graciously.\u201d  Rather than protecting my turf I\u2019m to think the best of people and be generous in my dealings with them.  This pretty Sermon has teeth.  It\u2019s supposed to work out here in the real world.  And, just so I clearly understand the measure of this gracious, generous life style, Jesus tells me that I\u2019m to treat others in the same gracious, generous way God treats me.  I need to spend a whole lot of time here at the Sermon on the Mount.<\/p>\n<p>Take Away: The Christian life is as much about \u201cme and you\u201d as it\u2019s about \u201cGod and me.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Perfect Sermon Matthew 5: Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you. In one glorious Sermon Jesus sums up the life to which God calls us. In every word we hear pure gold. It\u2019s in retrospect that I realize that this beautiful, perfectly constructed Sermon challenges me at every level [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1518,1428],"tags":[1188,369,389,518,902],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9926"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9926"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15649,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9926\/revisions\/15649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}