Do we recognize the new creation of Christ in one another? Signs of our ignorance of this truth is our petty squabbles with one another, our intolerance, our want of honor, our need to be above the rest?
For if we are One in Him then we are all His new creation, fully reconciled, fully alive in Him. Loving one another as fellow children of God our Heavenly Father.
We will not give excuses or spin unnecessary tales, our Yes will be Yes for His Glory. Our No will be no to things not of Him, or His will. For our Lord’s will be done always. Amen
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First reading
2 Corinthians 5:14-21
From now onwards we do not judge anyone by the standards of the flesh
The love of Christ overwhelms us when we reflect that if one man has died for all, then all men should be dead; and the reason he died for all was so that living men should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to life for them.
From now onwards, therefore, we do not judge anyone by the standards of the flesh. Even if we did once know Christ in the flesh, that is not how we know him now. And for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here. It is all God’s work. It was God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the work of handing on this reconciliation. In other words, God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself, not holding men’s faults against them, and he has entrusted to us the news that they are reconciled. So we are ambassadors for Christ; it is as though God were appealing through us, and the appeal that we make in Christ’s name is: be reconciled to God. For our sake God made the sinless one into sin, so that in him we might become the goodness of God.
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Gospel
Matthew 5:33-37
Do not swear: say ‘Yes’ if you mean Yes, ‘No’ if you mean No
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘You have learnt how it was said to our ancestors: You must not break your oath, but must fulfil your oaths to the Lord. But I say this to you: do not swear at all, either by heaven, since that is God’s throne; or by the earth, since that is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, since that is the city of the great king. Do not swear by your own head either, since you cannot turn a single hair white or black. All you need say is “Yes” if you mean yes, “No” if you mean no; anything more than this comes from the evil one.’
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