Friday; July 10
When Jesus was preparing His early audience for the coming of His spiritual kingdom, He challenged them, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1). Jesus came to earth when religion was important in Israel; but it was by no means perfect. (Does that sound familiar?). As I read His warning the other day a couple of things came to mind. First, we need to have a proper attitude about our religious rituals. We have to do with them the proper attitude – a desire to please God, not to be noticed by mankind. Yet, there was another aspect that jumped out to me – we were still supposed to do them. Not only do we need to have the right attitude, we still need to do the right actions. Over the next few verses we are told, “So when you give to the poor …” (v. 2) and “When you pray …” (v. 5). Believers need to have more ...