Today’s chapter is Matthew 7.

Tom writes:

Live different. Don’t just go with the flow. Don’t conform to the pattern of this world but continually mark yourself out as children of your Father by serving others. I find it easy to approach people - all people whether I know them or not - with one overriding question; “what can you do for me?”. Whether it is my wife who I want to listen to me or my friends who I want to entertain me or a random stranger who I want to keep out of my way on the train, I am pretty good at asking the question and finding an answer for what I want people to do for me. It is almost like that question is engraved on my soul. And also engraved on my soul is a rampant bitterness and frustration that all these ignorant people don’t live up to my expectations. My wife has to go and do something else, my friends get distracted trying to deal with their problems (how dare they?) and the stranger on the train talks infuriatingly loudly on their mobile phone. This is how I find life is naturally lived. But Jesus wants to wipe this away.

Jesus wants to fill in all these engravings and carve something almost entirely opposite in their place. Jesus wants us to ask not “what can you do for me” but “how could I help you out today”. Jesus wants us to look into other people’s lives not to work out what we can plunder from them but to work out what we can shore up in them, what we can encourage in them and, at times, what we can challenge in them. How can we do this? How can we start to be truly generous towards others, even if they steal our seat or offend us with their noise? It comes through knowing beyond doubt that we have a Father who will give us all we need. It comes through realising that we are one of the favoured few who have found the narrow way. It comes through looking at the cross and the resurrection and realising that God has already done more than enough to sort us out for this life and for eternity. And so we don’t need to put our expectations on the people around us because our expectations have already been more than exceeded by our God. Instead we can genuinely give ourselves to others, trusting and praying that as we do so, they will come to see that God can exceed all their expectations as well.

Question for reflection

What does your behaviour suggest is engraved on your soul? What would you like to be engraved there?

Matthew 7 - Tuesday 13th August