Today, Jesus takes us into one of the most personal and challenging areas of life\u2014our sexual purity. In a world flooded with temptation, sensuality, and distorted views of love, Jesus speaks with clarity and authority. He doesn\u2019t lower the bar. He raises it to the level of the heart!<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s be honest, no one escapes this struggle untouched. Lust isn’t just a temptation we battle out there in the world. It\u2019s a battle in here, in our hearts. If we\u2019re going to live as faithful citizens of God’s Kingdom, if we\u2019re going to live counter to the world\u2019s culture as salt and light, we need more than just a pursuit of outward obedience, trying to keep ourselves pure through self-effort. We need transformation of the heart! In our text today, Jesus exposes the root of our problem and calls us to radical, grace-filled purity.<\/p>\n
In the gospel of Matthew 5:27-30, Jesus confronted His hearers with the deeper intent of the Law, exposing the seriousness of lust as adultery of the heart, and calling them to a life of sexual purity as true citizens of God\u2019s kingdom. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13262,"template":"","tags":[],"series":[2968],"scripture-book":[1307],"scripture-chapter":[1338],"speaker":[2007],"class_list":["post-13261","message","type-message","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","series-kingdom-living","scripture-book-matthew","scripture-chapter-1338","speaker-gary-combs"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/13261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/message"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/13261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13263,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/13261\/revisions\/13263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13261"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=13261"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-book","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-book?post=13261"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-chapter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-chapter?post=13261"},{"taxonomy":"speaker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speaker?post=13261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}