DEACON TOM ANTHONY

Sunday, September 15, 2013






Everything in this life serves as a distraction one way or another and can prevent us from drawing closer to God. It must be remembered that Original Sin was when, with the exercise of our free will, we turned away from God. This continues today through our actions and the way we live. So much time in our lives is spent planning for the future. It becomes very easy to ignore God and not pursue a relationship with him. Even more ironic is the fact that because God is everywhere and in everything we become blind to his presence. The separation that we initiated widens more with the passing of each day unless we become conscious to the massive gulf between us and him.

We are habitual by nature and we live in an addictive society. We create our own patterns of behavior. This is also true with sin. The more we sin the more we become comfortable with it. We then convince ourselves that we are not sinning and self-justify our actions. This contributes more to the separation between us and God. Immersed in sin we then become comfortable with the separation and think we do not need to repair anything; we become comfortable without God. This is evident with the amount of people today who choose not to gather for worship even though we are instructed by God to do so on every sabbath day. Society enforces this behavior by transforming the sabbath day from a day of rest and worship to a day of sports and entertainment. As each generation passes, worship becomes less important in culture. It is a great victory by Satan that this phenomena has occurred and all of us are to blame.

Part of being a Christian is to conduct ourselves rightly and to evangelize the faith. We can do this simply by making Christ central in our lives and act out our faith. To do this properly we need to recognize God constantly and live with him. He needs to be a commanding presence that overshadows everything else. He must be able to influence all actions and conversations from what we would consider the least important to the most critical. We can never be comfortable with ourselves and our faith. We need to challenge ourselves and recognize what we can do better. Christ instructed us not to judge others; we must judge ourselves so that we may improve on the areas where we fall short. Being brutally honest and judgmental when it comes to ourselves will lead to a more fulfilling life. We can take comfort in the fact that, when we do this Christ becomes our advocate and savior. He is here to remind us that we are loved and forgiven. We can then make the adjustments necessary to actually feel his love.

A key part of Saint Paul's ministry was his constant testimony of being a sinner. He made that clear continuously throughout his letters. He was brutally honest with himself and used this as a tool: demonstrating how we all are called forward as we are to serve God. It is then through God that we are transformed. This transformation process is continuous. It has no end. There is no ultimate goal in our faith-life. No one is perfect and above reproach thus we must strive to reveal our faults and weaknesses to ourselves so that we are not overcome by them.

God loves us so much that it has the ability to overpower us in a wondrous way. To feel that love we must learn to recognize it and become familiar with it. Through Jesus Christ, the all-powerful, all-knowing God, can be personified. This personal relationship enables us to bring our spirituality to fruitation. He can then take care of us and we can love him all the more. The relationship can become passionate and beautiful. Christ can become our lover and our confidant; our friend. We have the capability to be lost in the love of our creator. With that, nothing else will matter as much except through our faith for it is through our faith that the perfectness of our existence can be revealed.

Our life can become like a great romantic novel with a story of loss, discovery, elation, and love. In the end will always be happiness with Christ. This is our life given to us by God. It is wonderful, beautiful, and glorious when we realize that he is the key to ultimate satisfaction and glory through him and with him.

Deacon Tom


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