Do You Follow? Matthew 5:17-48 is so rich and so deep and so powerful. Jesus wants to shine the light on God’s will for human completion. He desires that we become complete and mature (Be perfect as God is perfect) and nothing less is acceptable. Jesus’ standard of the new humanity is remarkably pristine and no amount of rationalization will stand up to his scrutiny. At the same time we see Jesus moving toward broken people like us with love and mercy and forgiveness and in his loving atonement we find he is covering for our sin while his kindness leads us to repentance. We are worse off than we imagined and more loved than we dared dream.

How do we live in this kind of kingdom with this kind of King? Well, we live in the light as he is in the light. We live in love from the Father and bask in the same light that reveals our broken parts. This is the Gospel and we must revel in it. As Jesus moved forward to the broken and marginalized they knew his high standards and they marveled at his amazing love. Take time to explore the complexity and simplicity of this radical and scandalous love both taught and shown by Jesus. Take a listen to the message entitled Kingdom of Light from February 11 here. One of my big takeaways was that Kingdom spirituality moves from checking the box (not doing the big sins) to allowing Jesus to open the box and shine a light in. We know why we wouldn’t want to have him shine the light, but do you have a story of how he has brought healing through that process? Share it here.