Matthew 5:21-26 – Dealing with anger and hostility

In Matthew 5:20, Jesus shows us what is required of the people of His Kingdom. In the lives of the scribes and Pharisees, we see people who tried their best to live out the demands of the law to a point of absurdity. But as disciples of Jesus, the demand He makes on us is even greater. He is not dealing with the acts per se but with intentions.

There are ideals demanded by the law.  They outlined for us what God requires of us in our earthly relationships with others. The sixth commandment God gave through Moses demanded that we must not commit murder. And it is right that we must not murder. Here, the Lord Jesus takes us even further. He deals with what could possibly lead up to an eventual murder. Jesus knows what must be done to contain anger before it leads into a murderous act. The best way to go about it is to contain anger before it progresses into hostility. If we do not deal with anger when it first surfaced, we would eventually end up acting aggressively toward our offender. The acts worsen in degrees and ending up in the actual murder or its equivalent.

As people of God’s new society, we know what’s demanded of us. We know the ideal, but how do we actually work this out in our everyday life? So the Lord leaves us something that help us to live this ideal in a practical everyday living. Here, His call is for us to be reconciled with our offender and not allow any anger to escalate into hatred, and then into murderous intention and even into the act of murder.

It is pointless to be excessively religious and be found in church seemingly worshipping the Lord, when we refuse to deal with an anger against someone. The Lord does not want any anger against anyone to be seething within when we come to worship Him. He wisely tells us to deal with that first. We must go and seek reconciliation even when we are not the one who had created the offence. If we don’t we will have to deal with dire consequences eventually. So wisdom dictates that we should obey and act as He had instructed us. Don’t let anger against anyone fester, deal with it immediately. If we keep on seeking reconciliation with our offenders, there could come a time when we will not take any offence to heart when we come to worship God. Our worship will be so much sweeter when we know we are at peace with God and with everyone.