Nice words from not nice people

We want to hear nice things about us. We want to know that people find us wise. We love to be loved.

Sometimes nice words aren’t nice. Sometimes nice words are the fresh cheese in a mousetrap, the sweet fruit laced with poison, the flattery before the knife in the ribs, the empty kisses.

What matters to you

Jesus, being the smartest person who ever lived, knew exactly what they were trying to do, why they were trying to trap him, and how to craft an answer that left them questioning their own beliefs.

Here’s the lesson for those who would follow him. It isn’t about being crafty in our answers to other people. It is this: what do the questions we keep asking Jesus tell us about our own biases, our own areas that we want to protect?

Watching a master

There are times that Jesus is involved in conversations with people, convictions with people, demonstrations with people to which I have nothing to contribute.

The best thing at these times, I’m convinced, is to sit back and watch.

Sometimes the most spiritual thing to do is nothing.

It really is quite simple

If Jesus came to fulfill the law, then he has kept this command. His life shows loving God completely and loving your neighbor as yourself. Perhaps the study is a simple as looking at how Jesus lived.

Rather than figuring out the edges of what counts, just love God and others.

Do what they say, not what they do

Any time we pile rule upon rule beyond the simple commands of Jesus, we are creating religion where he intends relationship.

But for everyone who has wept for fear of not measuring up, he offers hope beyond imagination, he offers relief.