We Can Know The Father
by Fr. David M. Knight
March 6, 2024
Wednesday (Week III of Lent)
Lectionary No. 239
Deuteronomy 4:1, 5-9; Psalm 147; Matthew 5:17-19
"I have come not to abolish but to fulfill." Matthew 5:17
The covenant God made with Israel was based on self-revelation. To give them his laws God had to reveal his heart.
What we most deeply desire gives us the key to our true self. When God “proclaimed his laws to Israel,” he revealed his own mind and heart by telling them how he desired them to live. Psalm 147 said “He has not done thus for any other nation.”
Our Father’s Law begins, “You shall love…” (Deuteronomy 6:4).
Not all fathers reveal their hearts to their children. Our Father does. What was incomplete in his self-revelation to Israel, Jesus brought to completion. He came “not to abolish, but to fulfill… to make all things new” (see Revelation 21:5; Isaiah 55:8). Christ’s New Law calls human beings to live, not as creatures made in God’s image and likeness, but as God’s own sons and daughters, who share his divine life. Christ’s New Law reveals how God himself sees and lives and loves.
We can know God intimately by studying Christ’s New Law. It is summarized in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew, chapters five to seven. Ponder it, and you will know God. Live it, and you will know he is your Father.
Above all, live in love.
ACTION: Read Matthew 5-7. Prayerfully.
PRAYER: “Give me understanding, that I may keep your law with my whole heart” (Psalm 119:34).
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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