Jesus: His Commands (3 of 14)

This is part 3 of a 14 part piece. Start here to read it through:

Give To Whoever Asks — Matthew 5:42, Luke 6:30, Luke 6:38 — At least for me, Jesus' commands to live with open hands are the most challenging. Jesus' followers must look critically into the world and live transparently in selfless sacrifice to participate in resurrection to every need without judgment to it's productiveness and validity.
Love Your Enemies — Matthew 5:44-45, Luke 6:27-28 — Perfect love is never contingent on it's recipient. As we come to the reality that God's redemptive life giving work is present in his entire creation, and comes from heaven distributed equally as is the sun and rain, we realize that we have no space but to creatively finds mean to bring new life into every person we encounter, and to trust God's greater work in their lives motivated by the selfless love of divine reconciliation of the entire creation.

Be Perfect — Matthew 5:48 — In the time and space between the completion of God's redemptive work and the final consummation of that work it is hard to believe we could practice this command with any sincerity. This command stands to ground us in the perspective of God. It is connected to this section on non-violent resistance, open giving, and enemy love in a way to challenge us to understand the very look of what God deems as “being perfect.” We press on to embodiment of selfless sacrifice to remember the God light that it creates is the very thing we were perfectly created for.

Do Not Use God for Self Promotion — Matthew 6:1–4 — Self promotion is the opposite direction of the Jesus follower. Jesus rejects the idea of upward mobility in any community by means of “righteous” living. Paul reminds us that Jesus, “though being in very nature as God, emptied himself.” We are commanded that walking in humility before God should be the street lamps that illuminate our path; for when it is the praise of men that is a temporal reward.

Pray God's Vision — Matthew 6:5–14 , Luke 11:10-4— The command of how to pray deserves an entire post to itself and I will not attempt to treat it in this small form format. Suffice to say, that the purpose of prayer is to make God's will a reality that permeates the entirety of the cosmos.

Continue Reading Part 4 of 14