Good Morning Garden

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee;
Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift (Matthew 5:23-24).

Indignation, resentment, the desire to punish other people, the desire to “get even,” the feeling “it serves him right”; all these things form a quite impenetrable barrier to spiritual power. Jesus says that if you are bringing a gift to the altar, and you remember that your brother has anything against you, you must put down your gift and go make peace with your b rother; when you have done that, your offering will be acceptable.

Jesus builds up this tremendous lesson in the Oriental tradition. He says first that whoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger; second that to be hostile to another, is to be in grave danger; and finally that to hold so low an opinion about a fellow creature as to consider him outside the pale, is to shut ourselves off from any hope of spiritual fruit while we remain in this state of mind.

Note carefully that the King James version of the Bible here makes a serious error, which has been corrected in the revised version. It interpolates a phrase not in the earliest manuscripts and makes Jesus say, “Whoever is angry without a cause; which is a manifest absurdity. No sane person gets angry without what he deems to be a cause. What Jesus said was that whoever is angry with his brother under any circumstances is in danger.

Anger is poison, literally and spiritually. The desire for revenge is acid and resentment is rust. When angered, our bodies produce chemicals that prepare us to fight or flee. These chemicals are harmful. When we stay in an angry, resentful or vengeful state, these chemicals poison our souls, bodies and our minds. They are harmful to our bodies and fatal to our spirits.

Live love,
Z gardener