Just when we might expect God to remove Himself from us, He comes to us. He doesn’t just make Himself available, He comes to us and knocks at the door of our heart because He wants to forgive us and restore us. How amazing!

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure

I used to love listening to that old Bobby McFerrin song, Don’t Worry, Be Happy. It was a fun song and I love a good a cappella song.
As fun as the song is, it lacks something. The basic premise is, don’t worry. The bad stuff will pass and everything will work out in the end. The song’s emphasis on not being too tied to our stuff is good, but it gives no good reason to not worry or to be happy.

Have you ever tried to date two people at the same time or know someone who did? I knew a few guys in college who tried. It sounded great to them at first but always ended the same. Eventually, at least one of the relationships ended, and it didn’t usually take that long. As they started liking one girl over the other, they would start to neglect or even despise the other.

The other day I was driving around with my daughter in the car. At one point, we started smelling some foul. My daughter said, “Ugh! Gross! Roll down the windows!”

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is

When we are told to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself,” we are being told to make God our treasure and then treasure the ways we can serve others.

In our passage for today, Jesus is helping us to remember that the purpose of things like fasting or giving something up for Lent is not to make ourselves look better, but to focus our hearts on minds on Him. So, if you want to fast or give something up for Lent, great, but do it to focus on Jesus.

The very act of going to God in prayer involves our accepting that we need Him and that we can trust Him with our needs. We don’t have to worry about getting the words just right. God knows what we need and He will give it. It may not be exactly what we want, but what we want isn’t always what we need. So, we can go to God in prayer and trust that God’s will is good and He will answer our prayer in His good way.

Jesus is calling out those people who would serve, but do so not to help others or glorify God, but rather to boost their own image. When we serve like that, serving the other person is only incidental; the person we are really trying to serve is ourselves.