Mere Cognition

wipes brow my study time today is a smack upside the head. Matthew chapter 10.

34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
36 And a person's enemies will be those of his own household.
37 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.
38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Too few people grasp the gravity of verses 37-39. This should put sheer terror into everyone. Yet the scoffers scoff, believers and unbelievers alike. Voddie Baucham wasn't kidding about so many people worshipping a "sissified, needy Jesus." Verse 34 blows that concept out of the water.

Yet, if you don't grasp the gravity of this passage, and its eternal implications, you're not going to take the rest of the Bible seriously, either.

I pray for every last one of you that I know, or have known, marinate on this, especially if you don't believe in God. We don't know what came before the universe, and we don't even have the ability to know. What do you think we know about what comes after we die? You wanna risk it for a few moments of comfort and safety here, on this planet, where there is constant strife, war, and destruction on every continent?

You can do that, if you want. I really really wish you would think about it, though.

v.5 will not go unpunished. The legal terminology indicates that the judgment of God, not merely natural retribution, is involved. In the same way, there is a judicial act of God involved in the escape of the righteous from judgment.
v.6 steadfast love and faithfulness. Summarizes the attitude of the wise to the Lord (3: 3; 14: 22; 20: 28). The saying is a rebuke to formal religion without true faith.
v.7 please the LORD. See Eccl. 2: 26 and Eph. 5: 10. Following God’s way has reconciling and healing effects on personal relationships.
v.8 A number of proverbs have this form of direct comparison using the “better ... than” formula (15: 16, 17; 16: 8, 19, 32; 17: 1, 12; 19: 1). The fear of the Lord brings its own riches.

5 Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord;
be assured, he will not go unpunished.
6 By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for,
and by the fear of the Lord one turns away from evil.
7 When a man's ways please the Lord,
he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.
8 Better is a little with righteousness
than great revenues with injustice.

Presented without further comment today. I don't really have anything much more to add.