Not Again....

Over and over and over it goes. Year in and year out. We hear the same old Scriptures. Even on a three-year cycle some of them just seem to come up more often than others. Like this week:

Matthew 10:37-42 - Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.

Worthiness is in rejecting my family? Worthiness is giving up all that is important to me and leaving it behind? Worthiness is losing my life? Don't we in the church ever get tired of preaching and hearing those words?

Well, probably. That may be why we don't live them. They are too familiar. Background words of the Christian life.

Then there's the question of rewards. We talk about a Gospel of grace and we hear words of works. It gets confusing so we just go on with our lives and stop trying to figure it all out.

Which may be the smartest thing we can do, as long as in the stopping figuring we don't stop worshiping. It is when we give up our control of things; our interpretations that have to be the right ones; our worship and Bible and denomination and on and on and on, only then can we begin to hear what it may be that God is telling us in these passages.

I wish I could tell you because I still struggle with them on a daily basis. I guess I'll just keep listening.