Matthew 5:22  But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, "You fool!" will be liable to the hell of fire.

A pastor asked his 8th grade confirmation students if they thought they could keep the Ten Commandments. One brave girl replied, "I'm pretty sure I've broken all of them, except number five. I've never killed anyone."
 

The pastor didn't want to burst her bubble, but he was compelled by Scripture to explain that "murder" doesn't only mean the physical act of ending someone else's life. He shared Jesus' words from the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus redefines murder to include anything that could lead to bodily harm or injury. A lively discussion followed as the class named all the ways we "murder" people today - gossip, lying about people so others will be mad at them, getting in fights. Ideas flowed.

God knows very personally what murder is like - both in its broad definition, when Jesus was lied about and crowds were stirred up against Him, and in its literal sense, when He was kille to pay for sins that He did not commit. Our good and gracious Lord wants to protect all of us from experiencing murders in all its forms.

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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,