Scripture
“Whenever you enter someone’s home, first say, ‘May God’s peace be on this house.’
Observation
Jesus is sending out his disciples to prepare the places he planned to visit. Jesus gave the disciples a number of instructions on how to behave, including this statement about what to do when entering someone's house.
Application
This pinged me because I struggle a lot with what it means to act like a Christian. Jesus was very clear that His followers were to act different, but, from a practical day-to-day, decision-to-decision standpoint, what does that really mean? Is there a code of conduct or rules of behavior I follow? Most importantly, when I follow them, people will see it and say, "he's a Christian."
I struggle with this thinking because from everything I've learned, Christianity is unlike every other religion in the world in that it is **not** a set of rules to follow. If Jesus had established that, Christianity would just be another religion among religions. Instead, Christianity is a relationship with our living savior, Jesus.
Rules or relationship; it's a struggle. We must focus on the relationship, but, as sinful people I think it would be helpful to have rules too. The danger is repeating what happened with the Jewish faith where the rules became all important and people stopped building a relationship with God. There has to be a practical solution, I just don't know what it is.
Prayer
“Whenever you enter someone’s home, first say, ‘May God’s peace be on this house.’
Observation
Jesus is sending out his disciples to prepare the places he planned to visit. Jesus gave the disciples a number of instructions on how to behave, including this statement about what to do when entering someone's house.
Application
This pinged me because I struggle a lot with what it means to act like a Christian. Jesus was very clear that His followers were to act different, but, from a practical day-to-day, decision-to-decision standpoint, what does that really mean? Is there a code of conduct or rules of behavior I follow? Most importantly, when I follow them, people will see it and say, "he's a Christian."
I struggle with this thinking because from everything I've learned, Christianity is unlike every other religion in the world in that it is **not** a set of rules to follow. If Jesus had established that, Christianity would just be another religion among religions. Instead, Christianity is a relationship with our living savior, Jesus.
Rules or relationship; it's a struggle. We must focus on the relationship, but, as sinful people I think it would be helpful to have rules too. The danger is repeating what happened with the Jewish faith where the rules became all important and people stopped building a relationship with God. There has to be a practical solution, I just don't know what it is.
Prayer
