In Luke chapter 6 we have Luke’s account of the Sermon on the Mount, that Matthew records for us in Matthew ch5-7.
This is so familiar to most Christians it’s easy to miss the import of what is being said, and exactly what is expected and required of a disciple of Jesus.
In essence, it is a call to become Chist-like in our thinking and attitudes; it is a call to live a life of prayer, being rooted in God and His Word. However, as Oswald Chambers insightfully notes: “Fancy coming to men and women with defective lives and defiled hearts and wrong mainsprings, and telling them to be pure in heart! What is the use of giving us an ideal we cannot possibly attain? We are happier without it. If Jesus is a Teacher only, then all He can do is to tantalise us by erecting a standard we cannot come anywhere near. But if by being born again from above we know Him first as Saviour, we know that He did not come to teach us only: He came to make us what He teaches we should be. The Sermon on the Mount is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His way with us”. (Oswald Chambers, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount).
