Matthew 5-6

(April 17, 2015)

                So much of the Sermon on the Mount is dedicated to not only doing the right thing, but doing it for the right reasons.  This is a difficult thing to do, in my experience, because while I can generally force myself to do the right thing I have a much more difficult time in changing my heart to do what I am doing for the right reason.

                What I have discovered, though, is that this is something the Lord stands ready to help me with.  When I am struggling because I want to do the right thing, but my motivations are something less than ideal, I have learned that I can pray to Him and ask for His help.  When I tell Him my dilemma – that I want to do the right thing for the right reason, but I am in the position where my heart isn’t clean enough for that – I can offer the right thing with a desire to do it for the right reason (even if I don’t feel that).  The Lord, in my experience, has stepped in to bring about meaningful change in my heart whenever I have done this.