{"id":3012,"date":"2020-06-23T10:19:48","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T09:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stthomasneilston.co.uk\/?p=3012"},"modified":"2020-06-23T10:19:48","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T09:19:48","slug":"matthew-76-12-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/?p=3012","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 7:6, 12-14"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Matthew 7:6, 12-14<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo not give dogs what is holy and do not throw your pearls in front of pigs.\u201d This was a popular saying around the time of Jesus. The purpose is to teach us about discernment and prudence in order to avoid profaning what is holy and sacred and embracing what is false. Do we ever profane the sacraments by receiving them casually, in a state of serious or mortal sin?\u00a0 Do we ever take the sacraments for granted and approach them without due diligence and respect?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEnter by the narrow gate, since the road that leads to perdition is wide and spacious\u201d Jesus tells us that the road to eternity is a hard slog and takes a momentous effort. To live a generous and sincere Christian life is demanding and no easy option. We do not swagger into eternal life. We cannot live lives with no reference to God, follow our own dictates and then just expect that all roads lead to God.\u00a0 Jesus states that only a few will follow the route, the way that He has set\u00a0 before us, because His way goes against the human dynamic that chooses the gate that best suits me. But that is not God\u2019s way.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus was always brutally honest and was never one to pretend, in order to soften the reality. Life is hard. We are going to die. We are not in control. Our life is not just about us. Jesus did not promise us that it would be easy but He did promise us that it would be worth it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matthew 7:6, 12-14 \u201cDo not give dogs what is holy and do not throw your pearls in front of pigs.\u201d This was a popular saying around the time of Jesus. The purpose is to teach us about discernment and prudence in order to avoid profaning what is holy and sacred and embracing what is false. &#8230; <span class=\"more\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/?p=3012\">[Read more&#8230;]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","post","publish","author-ryan-black","post-3012","format-standard","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p85OtW-MA","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3012"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3013,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3012\/revisions\/3013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}