DAY 2: Reestablishing Our Normal Desires, Power, & Prayer
Reading Matthew 4-6
Welcome back! Today’s reading is Matthew chapters 4 through 6. Once again, we’re focusing on this month’s theme: Reestablishing The Norm.
Today’s Reading: Matthew 4-6
Reestablishing Our Normal Desires
We can see that happening clearly in chapter 4, when the devil begins to tempt Jesus with all of the “normal” temptations—things that mankind has long strived after, tried to accomplish, or sought to gain. If you look closely at those temptations, they aren’t just obvious sins. They’re the very things many people wouldn’t even realize were temptations. They look like everyday life. The normal way of thinking: “Get my career, be successful, get everything I can.”
But Jesus responds differently.
He reestablishes the norm desires with statements like: “Man shall not live by bread alone.” Every response He gives to the devil during that temptation re-centers us in who man truly is in God—and who God is in man.
Reestablishing Where Our Power Comes From
Then, we move into chapter 5, often called Sermon on the Mount. Some call it The Beatitudes. However, I love the title Sermon on the Mount because of how it unfolds. Jesus leaves the crowds and goes up into the mountain, and only a few—His disciples and a few others—follow Him up.
That climb itself is a type of separation. It’s a path that not everyone will take. And it’s up there, away from the crowd, that He begins to speak.
What He says in chapters 5 and 6—and we’ll see in chapter 7 tomorrow—is powerful. They were all said on that mountain; so all three of those chapters together make up the full Sermon on the Mount.
The things Jesus teaches in chapter 5 especially seem abnormal to us: “If they slap you on one cheek, turn to them the other.”
“If they sue you for your coat, give them your cloak also.” That’s not what we’ve learned, right? The normal reaction is: if someone hits you, hit back.
But Jesus is reestablishing the norm. He’s teaching us that what seems weak is where our true power and protection come from. He’s showing us what real strength looks like when it comes from being one with God.
Think about it. In chapter 4, He bypasses all the things that typically tempt man or that we usually make life’s goal, and now in chapters 5 and 6, He reveals where our identity and power actually reside.
Reestablishing How We Pray
In chapter 6, Jesus gets even more specific: “Don’t pray like them. Don’t give like them. Don’t do anything like them.” He says, “Your Father already knows what you need. But pray like this…” And then we get what many of us know as The Lord’s Prayer:
“Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.”
This is Jesus reestablishing the normal way to pray.
And He doesn’t stop there. He says, “Seek first the Kingdom of God…” in Matthew 6:33. There’s so much more in chapter 6 that’s worth noting. I could go on and on. But when you read it, you’ll see it for yourself.
Jesus—through who He is and what He says—reestablishes the normal. He restores the normalcy of God in us, and us in God.
He’s showing us what it looks like to live as one with God.
I love it.
Enjoy today’s reading.
Let’s Read/Listen!
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