God 's Grace is
a beautiful and wonderful thing. It is the working and presence of
his infinite love for us. We must all remember that he loves us and
longs to express that love continuously. Unfortunately, the very
creation that he brought into existence for us has the capability to
prevent that love from being revealed. There are so many obstructions
between us and God. These have been erected by us and our own actions
over long periods of time and have been reenforced by Satan. Tearing
down these walls can prove to be difficult; a dauntless task that, at
times, can appear to produce little or no results in the beginning.
Our own impatience adds to these difficulties and we become easily
distracted by things that may appear to offer positive development.
This in itself is another barrier that we must overcome. We are
prevented from experiencing God in our lives because the time we
spent ignoring him greatly outweighs the time we have spent with him
so we can actually miss his presence. Even when it is plainly obvious
that he is with us, we can pass right by him. Society has conditioned
us to believe that we as human beings are above and beyond everything
else here on this earth. We have convinced ourselves that we are gods
and have forgotten that, in fact, we are God's children and are
answerable to him.
To know God is
to love God. John, in his first letter, tells us that love is from
God and is brought to perfection through him. That is why the
Greatest Commandment in centered around love: love of God and the
love of our neighbor. So, to recognize that love we must first make
it the most important thing in our lives. We must treat everyone we
interact with with love and kindness. We must empty ourselves of all
of our selfish desires and put ourselves last. That is our Christian
Duty. We need to love and express that love through acts of charity
and kindness. There is an immediate feeling of goodness that
overcomes us when we do good. This is no coincidence. We were created
for love and when we act out that love we are bringing ourselves
closer to God who is the perfect love.
God has and
always will help us on our journey of faith. I truly feel that all of
us can reflect over our past and remember a time vividly when God
interceded in our lives in some way either to destroy a barrier or
help us in some way. Because of our fallen nature, we may have been
thankful for a moment but then the moment passed and we continued
onward in our sinful ways. He was calling out to us, comforting us,
yet we were then overcome by distractions when the moment faded. Yes,
we may have acknowledged God for the moment but we then squandered
the moment selfishly like 9 of the ten lepers who were healed and
never returned to thank Jesus. Our relationship with God is two-fold:
we need to embrace these moments and use these moments to lift
ourselves up to greater heights. If we do not, it can become a wasted
opportunity.
We always like
being stimulated. Unfortunately, physical our minds are focused more
on physical stimulation than spiritual stimulation. We have become
immersed in the physical dimensions of our existence and have ignored
the spiritual. When we experience a spiritual moment we do enjoy it
immensely, yet we may not challenge ourselves enough to embrace it
and use it as an opportunity to continue the experiences because we
do not know enough about it to use it to our advantage; it is too
foreign to us. We are more accustomed to physical pleasures and
pursue them more easily because we are very learned in these areas.
Unfortunately, physical pleasures are fleeting so we train ourselves
to chase after them. Spiritual pleasures can last forever because
they unite us to God. If we worked towards these spiritual pleasures
with as much effort as we do with physical pleasures, we would all be
closer to God and his love.
Our journey of
faith must be centered around getting closer to God. To do this
correctly, we must unite our physical presence and life with that of
our spiritual life. Our spirituality must influence our physical
actions. A big mistake is to keep the two separate. Our physical life
needs to be a reaction to our spirituality if we are to be truly
happy and complete. Spirituality needs to become more important than
the physical life. This is what God intended and what we failed to do
with the exercise of our free will. We rebelled against perfection
and still do continuously. It is a struggle between the flesh and the
spirit. We need to stop fighting with ourselves and realize that,
because of the fighting, we are only hurting ourselves.
Recognize that
our God is with us. Recognize that our God loves us. Once we do this
we can then embrace him and experience him in his greatness.
Deacon Tom
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