Last question in the last blog was what do you see in Jesus? Today question is what are you learning from Jesus? From chapter 5-7 the Lord is talking in a very new level of relationship between God and us and between our neighbors and us, before everything was about fulfilling the law now is living the law from inside out.
Jesus now is telling his followers that before they were doing things in order to please people, but now whatever they do they have to do it in order to please God. Before maybe, you could pretend that you were doing well, now you really have to do well because “your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (6:4) so from now on you really have to pay attention and do what really pleases the Lord and is the best for your neighbors. There is no space for pretending, he says, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock” (7:24-25)
Chapters 8-12 are a wonderful description of the mercy of the Lord over the people who were around him. There are several records of healings and powerful signs among the people, but also when you read carefully, you can see that Matthew chose to put his own conversion as another healing or powerful sign because at that time nobody believes that a tax collector could be transformed into a good man because they had a very bad reputation. That is why, Matthew made sure that his readers know that Jesus also can change even a tax collector like him; his love could change or heal anybody.
Jesus’ uniqueness was so powerful that as I said before the religious leaders would try to deny it by any means, even by comparing him with Beelzebul (Satan, Matthew 12:22-31) But the Lord was full of God’s wisdom and he always would have the right word of God for every given situation. He told them “If Satan cast out Satan he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand?” (12:26)
We have too much to learn from this wonderful Son of God!