I am a Jesus pusher!!! “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, . . . But I say to you” (Matthew 5:21-22). Many people refuse to acknowledge anything they cannot see. Perhaps we should start by embracing together the EXISTENCE of the spiritual realm. From a biblical perspective, the spiritual realm has a greater presence than the physical realm. The dominating element is not the physical world but the spiritual. In other words, if you want to change the physical circumstances of your living, you must focus on the spiritual realm of your life. Paul exclaimed this with force! “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).
This spiritual battle was boldly displayed in the wilderness temptation of Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11). After forty days and nights of spiritual warfare, there were three last attempts by Satan to destroy Jesus. The first comes through the hunger drive of His physical body. The second regards His first physical act of ministry to win people to His new Kingdom, and the third attacks the potential to rule all the known physical kingdoms of the world. Each temptation is rooted in the physical world, but none are about the physical. If Jesus had responded in physical obedience to Satan’s request, the results would have been in the spiritual realm, not the physical.
Jesus addressed this in our passage (Matthew 5:21). What if murder in the spiritual realm is as destructive to human living as physical murder? If I physically murder someone, I destroy life. What if my hate in the spiritual realm also destroys life? If we allow hate, anger, demeaning, and belittling in my relationships, I destroy hearts. I must experience the nature of Jesus! I am a Jesus pusher!!!