Bible Comments for 1/20/2014

Readings from Matthew. What is the Kingdom of heaven like? In chapter 13 beginning at verse 24, we read five parable stories beginning with “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…” Then at the end of the section, Jesus begins to decipher the parables for the his disciples. Notice how we are to live in the world amongst the wheat and the weeds. The world will contain good and bad people living side by side. And, we are not to try and remove the bad people. That will happen at harvest time. The angels will come and remove all the evil and it will be burned in the fiery furnace. So then, it is not our job to clean up the world? What is our job? Love God, love people and go make disciples. I notice by looking around how we get that mixed up. We have jails. We lock people up, we even execute the really bad ones. On a smaller scale, we classify and characterize people into the good and bad categories. Think about these statements more. This is one way of describing the a characteristic of “The Kingdom of Heaven.” The passage begins with, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…”. Is the description as simple and clear as I read in verses 36-43? The angels will be able to pick out the righteous because they shine like the sun in their Father’s Kingdom. If we are truly followers of Jesus, we will shine. The angels will be able to distinguish the righteous. Their light will shine. How do we make our light shine? I don’t think we can do it. Only God can make us shine with His brilliance. We don’t get there by trying to be good. We don’t get there by getting rid of the evil around us. We get there by being a follower of Jesus. Follow God, obey Him and he will make your light shine.