Ten commandments?? How about 10x10x10? Read / Listen Listen to passage & devotional: Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 93 Q. How are these commandments divided? A. Into two tables. The first has four commandments, teaching us what our relation to God should be. The second has six commandments, teaching us what we owe our neighbor. Summary He started off so well. This rich young man asked Jesus the question that should be everyone's top priority: "what good thing must I do to be saved?" All of us - every person born since Adam - instinctively knows there's a relationship between salvation and doing good things. But this young man is smarter than most, for he can see that not everything that seems to be good actually is. He wants to focus his efforts on what really counts. Jesus didn't need to think about the question for too long. Although it's a profoundly important question to ask, it's not at all hard to answer: if you want salvation, perfectly follow the commands of the One who is good. Here's where things started to go off the rails for the young man. He asked Jesus, "Which ones?" It's moments like this that we really see the patience of our Savior. He would have been totally justified to burst out laughing at the glaring stupidity of the question, or even to have the young man instantly smote with fire from heaven for daring to suggest that some of God's commands are more important than others. But Jesus doesn't do what the rest of us would have done if we were in His position. Jesus continues to engage the man in conversation. Keep the second table of the law, Jesus tells the man. In other words, love your neighbor as yourself. At this, a smile likely came upon the young man's face. After all, he had certainly never murdered, committed adultery, stolen or lied. Or so he thought as he confidently reported this to Jesus, at the same time wondering if there was a detail or two Jesus could suggest he ought to add to the list, just to be really sure. Somehow the man missed the fact that Jesus had said nothing about the first table of the law: those first four commandments that teach us what our relationship ought to be with the One who said, "Be holy, because I am holy." Jesus goes on to tell the man that perfection requires much more than following ten commandments. After all, nowhere does the Bible command a person to give away all that he has. True godliness includes all of the implications of both tables of the law, whether they've been written down or not. Both this rich young man and the disciples are absolutely crushed by Jesus' answer. Who could possibly meet this exponential criteria for salvation? Dig Deeper We understand God's law to have three purposes: It shows us how sinful we are; It provides a general guide for how society should behave; It shows the saved how to live gratefully. The Heidelberg Catechism properly focuses on the third use of the law: gratitude. But don't forget that you will never really be truly grateful unless you first understand your guilt. This is why we read some portion of God's law in our worship services, so that we are regularly convicted by it; so that each week we're forced to ask with the disciples, "who then can be saved?" So when we hear Jesus answer, "with man, [salvation] is impossible, but with God all things are possible," we can look at these two tables of the law as a guide for grateful living in response to God's grace freeing us from our exponential guilt. AAA Prayer (About) ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, the One who is good; ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Thank God for His law, that we've met its conditions in Christ, and pray that we';; use His law as a guide for grateful living. ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Read the New Testament in a year, a chapter a day - 1 Corinthians 16

Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus is less detailed than the one found in the Gospel of Luke (which However, what we see in Matthew’s condensed telling of Jesus’ birth is the most important details being

ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Read the New Testament in a year, a chapter a day - Matthew 12

Matthew 3:13–17 (NIV) 13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But John

In the second part of Q&A 27 and our passage today from Matthew 10, Jesus appeals to providence to assure If you trust in your heavenly Father, the promises you read in Matthew 10 and Q&A 27 reveal that His

Read / Listen Listen to passage & devotional: Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 66 Q. What are sacraments?

The warning Jesus shares in Matthew 7:15 is to be aware of false prophets.

Warning: what Jesus says here will absolutely crush you. Read / Listen Listen to passage & devotional: Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 94 Q. What does the Lord require in the first commandment? A. That I, not wanting to endanger my very salvation, avoid and shun all idolatry, magic, superstitious rites, and prayer to saints or to other creatures. That I sincerely acknowledge the only true God, trust him alone, look to him for every good thing humbly and patiently, love him, fear him, and honor him with all my heart. In short, that I give up anything rather than go against his will in any way. Summary Jesus makes three counter-intuitive claims that are really hard to understand in this short passage: Those who love their family more than Jesus are not worthy of Him: This passage comes on the heels of an even harder saying from Jesus, that He "did not come to bring peace, but a sword," and that He came to set family members against one another! Certainly as a Christian you must love, honor, and respect your family. Thankfully, in most cases you can glorify God in how you relate to your family as you fulfill the numerous scriptural commands to care for your parents and children. But as soon as your familial allegiance begins to eclipse your allegiance to God, it becomes an idol. Those who do not 'take up their cross' are not worthy of Christ: D.A. Carson says it well, "'Taking one’s cross' does not mean putting up with some awkward or tragic situation in one’s life, but painfully dying to self. In that sense, every disciple of Jesus bears the same cross." It means that process we reflected on last week - dying to sin and coming to new life in Christ - must be your top priority. We all stand convicted of idolatry when we see how far down the priority list this effort actually is - if, in fact, it even shows up at all. Those who 'find' their life will lose it: We live in a world defined by a philosophy called existentialism, in which each of us can define our own reality, morals, and objectives. It's easy to 'find' yourself in a made up reality. Jesus here only echos what His Father had said millenia before: that you will find true life when we lose your own definitions (gods) for the sake of Christ. This is what it means in our day and age to have no other gods before me. Dig Deeper I do not think it is a harsh judgment to say that the most obvious feature of the life of the Christian Church today is, alas, its superficiality. - Martin Lloyd Jones, circa 1959 Putting other 'gods' before the one, true, triune God is the very definition of superficiality. If these words of Jesus don't 'cut you to the heart (Acts 2:37),' stop what you're doing and read them again. We're not even 10% of the way into God's law, and already the load is crushing. Let go of whatever 'gods' you have placed before the One True God - your family, your sins, even your pursuit of 'happiness' - and cling to the cross of Christ. Be thankful that even this most heinous sin of idolatry has been paid for on the cross, and that as a redeemed sinner you've been set free in order to fully submit yourself to God. AAA Prayer (About) ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who must be held above all things. ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that the Holy Spirit will help you prioritize your life so that nothing stands between you and following Christ. ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Read the New Testament in a year, a chapter a day - 2 Corinthians 2

The forbidden fruit 'was 'good for food and pleasing to the eye (Gen 3:6).'

Read / Listen Listen to passage & devotional: Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 62 Q.