Matthew 21:31<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c \u2018Which of the two did the will of his father?\u2019 They said to Him, \u2018The first.\u2019 Jesus said to them, \u2018Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you.\u2019 \u201c<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus is not impressed by what we say, but by what we do. In the story of this parable, the first son initially refused to obey his father and work in the vineyard; but after reflecting and rethinking the issue, he changed his mind and went. On the other hand, the second son quickly accepted his father\u2019s request to work in his vineyard, but never went. So, Jesus\u2019 question reveals the real issue: \u201cWho is justified here? Is it he who said he\u2019d do the work but didn\u2019t or he who had refused to work, but later on did the work?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We need to give up the notion that what we say impresses God. God isn\u2019t watching what we say as much as what we do. We can have great speeches about God, but go ahead and do the very things that break His heart. Pure and undefiled spiritual life is known by the actions done in faith, and not by grand confessions and proclamations. If we say we love Him, let it show by what we do for Him and in His name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFather, I choose to speak less of my love for You, but I intend to prove my love by the things I will do for You. This is my commitment to You in Christ. Amen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matthew 21:31 \u201c \u2018Which of the two did the will of his father?\u2019 They said to Him, \u2018The first.\u2019 Jesus said to them, \u2018Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you.\u2019 \u201c Jesus is not impressed by what we say, but by what we do. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-reflections-from-matthew"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Reflections-from-Matthew.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4268,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266\/revisions\/4268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}