Matthew 23:13<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In this chapter, we see the fierce anger of the Lord against religious clerics who are obstacles to true spirituality and who are veils before the face of the honest seeker of truth. These men are not just hypocrites and pretentious about their spirituality; they are exploitative, and they devour the people. They abuse their privileges and use the people for selfish gain. Eight times in this one chapter, Jesus pronounced curses on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I feel the anger in God\u2019s heart against people in leadership who do not approach their calling with gravity and servant-mindedness. I see the anger in God\u2019s heart when leaders take advantage of the vulnerable and the needy. I hear the anger in God\u2019s voice against the clergy who have become a privileged class who prey on others and use ministry for selfish gain. \u201cO Lord, may Your anger never rest on me because of any of these things. O God, deliver our needy people from the wolves who hide behind the cloak of spiritual leadership.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLord, this is my cry today. May I never come under this fierce anger and may I be watchful in my dealings with others. But Lord, don\u2019t be silent about the gross abuse in Your Church today. Do something about it, Lord. This I pray in Your name. Amen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matthew 23:13 \u201cBut woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.\u201d In this chapter, we see the fierce anger of the Lord against religious clerics who are obstacles to […]<\/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-4361","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\/4361","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=4361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4363,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4361\/revisions\/4363"}],"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=4361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}