For the sake of Love

A Reflection for:

Monday of the 20th Week of Ordinary Time

August 20, 2018

Today's Readings:

Ezekiel 24:15-23
Deuteronomy 32:18-21
Matthew 19:16-22

What are you willing to give up for the sake of Love? Or, to put it another way, what are you willing to give up for the sake of Jesus? Since God is Love, it's the same question.

In today's Gospel reading, the rich young man walked away from Jesus, unwilling to give to others what God had given to him in abundance. He didn't really want to be perfected spiritually.

In scripture, "perfection" doesn't mean doing everything perfectly right all the time. It means being just like our Creator, i.e., living in a state of total and complete unconditional love. Jesus is saying, "If you want to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect, love him with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your gifts, all your talents, all your skills, all your time, and all your possessions."

He is not asking us to take everything we own and sell it in a yard sale, then donate the proceeds to charity. What he is telling us to do is to honor God with all we've got and get rid of everything that interferes with Love. The most powerful, successful way to do this is in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where we get rid of everything that interferes in our union with God. The Penitential Rite at the beginning of Mass and the Sacrament of the Eucharist further unites us to Love.

What are you attached to that prevents greater intimacy with God? Which of the following apply to you?

• friendships that slow or reverse your spiritual growth
• a job that contributes to your sinful weaknesses
• bad attitudes, negative mindsets
• a fascination with violence, the occult, or immoral entertainment
• the "I've got to be right" mentality that puts others down
• clinging to money (do you give God 10% of your income as scriptures command?)
• possessions you're not even using that others need
• business methods that contradict God's ways
• addictions you have not yet turned over to God the Higher Power
• disobeying a Church teaching because you don't like it
• society's consensus that approves of same-sex marriages and claims that the Bible is wrong about it
• (fill in the blank)

Look at what Jesus gave up for the sake of loving you:

• a carpentry business (or whatever employment he had)
• a safe, familiar home in Nazareth
• family and friends in Nazareth
• his own preferences for how to spend his time
• his freedom
• his perfect health
• his desire to avoid pain and suffering
• his life

http://gnm.org/good-news-reflections/

Patiently Trust His Timing

God's direction and timing is always perfect and always with a purpose - but it is often with a purpose we may not initially see or understand. Even when we earnestly ask for direction through prayer and the study of His Word, God's answers are usually not what we expect and are often perceived as slow in arriving. However, His direction and timing still remains, always perfect and always with a purpose.

God called Abraham to follow Him when Abraham was already seventy-five years old. Though advanced in years, God blessed Abraham with great abundance and soon promised he would have many descendants; "I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted" (Genesis 13:16).

Although this was a wonderful promise from God, it certainly did not seem possible. Not only was Abraham an old man, but his wife, Sarah, had never been able to have children and was now long past the normal child bearing years. Therefore, when Sarah failed to become pregnant - when God's promise was apparently going to be unfulfilled - she formulated a plan to "help" God.

Genesis 16:2
"The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her."

Since this was an accepted practice and seemed like a reasonable way to fulfill God's promise, Abraham agreed. Not surprisingly, great tension soon developed between Sarah and her maidservant. This tension increased when Ishmael was born and even continues today with the unfortunate hostilities we see in the region of the Middle East. Abraham clearly heard the call and promise of God, but he became impatient with God's timing and resorted to a worldly solution.

It was another thirteen years before God fulfilled His promise through the birth of Isaac. These were thirteen long years of waiting and wondering if God had forgotten...but God's direction and timing is always perfect and always with a purpose. With Abraham one hundred years old and Sarah ninety, the birth of Isaac left no doubt that God was in complete control and guiding the events in Abraham's life.

In a very real sense, we are foreigners in this place and time; "Aliens and strangers on earth" (Hebrews 11:13). We will never understand how all the pieces fit together until we stand before the Creator of the Universe. Until then, we must continue to love and worship Him with all our heart. We must continue to seek His face and ask His guidance for every step. We must continue to follow His direction and patiently trust His timing.

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=1102184301023&ca=ef07aedc-5dd0-4b23-871c-7bc26a382324

What Does It Mean That Jesus Is Our Friend?

A true friend is loyal and faithful, watches out for you, confides in you, shares his life with you and gives things up for you. God offers us friendship with Him that is all this and more.

Jude Beck/Unsplash

We can have God as our friend forever if we will do all that He tells us.

On the night before He died, Jesus told us what a good friend He would be if we met one condition. He said to His disciples, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you” (John 15:13-14).

These words of Jesus convey the meaning of all He would do for us as our friend. They also convey what we must do to be His friends. Jesus laid down His life for us, which proves He is the greatest kind of friend we could have. As the Bible says, “for the joy that was set before Him,” He “endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). He did that for His friends; He was loyal to the end of His physical life. What was this “joy that was set before Him?” It was the joy of knowing His death would allow us to be His friends forever in eternal glory.

If you want Him as your friend, you need to lay down your life for Him. He said, “whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25). This is the loyalty He expects of us if we will be His friend.

This means giving up your own ways of doing things and then doing things God’s way. Your own way of doing things leads to death (Proverbs 14:12). Your “old man,” the sinful person you have become, must be put to death (Romans 6:6). That is what Jesus wants you to do so He can start a friendship with you. Paul the apostle wrote of his death in Christ. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). This is the death you must die for Jesus to be your friend.

The Bible has examples of people who were friends with God. God called the biblical patriarch, Abraham, His friend. The Scripture says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And he was called the friend of God” (James 2:23). Abraham met the condition of friendship with God. God said of him, “Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws” (Genesis 26:5).

Like Abraham, King David was a man who did all that God commanded him. God said, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all my will” (Acts 13:22). Because David did what God commanded, he was God’s friend.

A true friend is always faithful, and David knew the faithfulness of God. He wrote, “Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds” (Psalms 36:5). God was always faithful to David and made him a great king over Israel and gave him victory over his enemies. As a true friend of God, David did all of God’s will, and God was faithful to him. God will always be faithful to His friends. The Bible says, even “if we are faithless, He remains faithful” (2 Timothy 2:13).

True friends also confide in one another. We can trust a true friend to hear all our deepest thoughts and emotions. When God is your Friend, He takes you into His confidence. Christ said to His disciples, “I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). When God is our friend, He tells us His plans for us and for all of mankind. He wants His friends to know these things and reveals them to us through His word. David wrote of the things that God confides in those who love Him: “The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant” (Psalms 25:14).

Like a true friend who wants to share everything with you, God wants to share His glory with us. He created us in His image (Genesis 1:26) with a plan for “bringing many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10). God will share His existence with His friends for all eternity. As the scripture says, “we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).

We can have God as our friend forever if we will do all that He tells us. As Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). He wants you to share in His glory, and He died for you to make that possible. This is what it means that Jesus is our friend.

https://www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/bible-questions-and-answers/what-does-it-mean-that-jesus-is-our-friend

What Does It Mean That Jesus Is Creator?

The Bible teaches that Jesus was the creative agent through which God the Father acted to make all things. Moreover, Jesus "uphold[s] all things by the word of His power" (Hebrews 1:3), acting as the ongoing sustainer of the universe.

Aaron Burden/Unsplash

The biblical conclusion is that Jesus Christ was the agent of creation at the will of the Father, and that both the Father and Jesus were involved in the planning and design of the universe.

John 1:1-14 clearly outlines Jesus’ role as Creator of the physical world: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us . . . the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:1-3, John 1:14).

Also inherent in this passage is the fact that Jesus Himself was not created, but rather existed eternally with God the Father (for more information on this vital point, see Was Jesus a Created Being? .) Ephesians 3:9 and Hebrews 1:1-2 affirm that God created the physical world through Jesus Christ, but Colossians 1:16-17 further clarifies that Jesus also created even non-physical things such as positions of authority: ”by Him all things were created … visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.”

This does not mean that God the Father was not involved with creation, or cannot also rightly be called the Creator. This is seen in the creation of man when God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). The use of the plural pronouns indicates the involvement of both God the Father and the Word, who was the pre-incarnate Jesus (John 1:14). Hebrews 1:1-2 states that God the Father created the worlds through Jesus, showing that they were, jointly, the Creators. Further evidence for the unified creative role is found in Ecclesiastes 12:1, which says, “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth…” The underlying Hebrew text is actually plural here and says “Creators,” acknowledging both the Father and Christ.

Therefore, the biblical conclusion is that Jesus Christ was the agent of creation at the will of the Father, and that both the Father and Jesus were involved in the planning and design of the universe. A succinct way to express this properly is to state that God is the Creator, with the term “God” referring collectively to God the Father and Jesus Christ. This linguistic convention is used in Genesis 1:26 and elsewhere throughout the Bible to denote both beings. For a more detailed discussion of the roles of God the Father and Jesus Christ in creation, please see Who Is Our Creator?

https://www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/bible-questions-and-answers/what-does-it-mean-that-jesus-is-creator

You Can’t Have a Closed Heart If You Want to Understand Jesus : Pope rancis

In order to understand Jesus, we cannot have closed hearts, but rather need those that are courageous and forward-looking.

Pope Francis stressed this during his daily morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta as he asked those gathered to ask themselves to consider their own faith in Christ, reported Vatican Radio.

“How is my faith in Jesus Christ?” he urged them to reflect, as he reflected on today’s readings.

Recalling today’s Gospel from St. Mark, which recounted the miraculous healing of a paralytic in Capernaum, Francis stressed that ‘no one can buy faith,’ for it is ‘a gift that changes our life.’

Must Open Our Hearts

In order to really understand Jesus, he underscored, we cannot have a “closed heart,” and rather, need to follow the path of forgiveness and humiliation.

To illustrate what it means to really have faith, the Pope turned to the people of Capernaum, who were ready to do anything to get closer to Jesus, taking whatever risks may have come their way. So confident they were in Him and His healing, they overcrowded and surrounded the home where the Lord would heal. He also reminded them that the roof had to be opened for the paralyzed man to be lowered into the home.

Need for Courageous, Forward-looking Hearts

“They had faith,” the Pope exclaimed, “the same faith as that lady who, also in a crowd, arranged to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment, Jesus’ robe, when He was going to the house of Jairus, that she too might be healed.” He observed this was the same faith of the centurion, who wished for his servant to be healed.

“Strong faith, courageous, forward – looking,” the Holy Father said, “hearts to faith.”

Closed Hearts Cannot Understand Jesus

In the paralytic’s story, the Jesuit Pope said, “Jesus goes a step further,” of not just healing, but forgiving.

“There were those there who had their hearts closed, but accepted – up to a point – that Jesus was a healer – but forgiving sins is strong! This man is over the top! He has no right to say this, because only God can forgive sins.”

Only Jesus knew what they were thinking, the Pope reflected, and said: ‘I am God’? – No, He did not say that. [He said,] ‘Why are you thinking these things? Because you know that the Son of Man has the power – this is what makes him special [It. è il passo avanti] – to forgive sins: ‘Arise, take up your mat and be healed.’”

The Holy Father observed that here, “Jesus begins to speak the language that at some point will discourage people, some of disciples who followed him – for, hard is this language, when he speaks of eating his body as a way of salvation.”

All doubt: but are you a disciple that stays, or goes away?

He urged those gathered to reflect whether Jesus does, really, change their lives.

When Jesus shows up with a power greater than that of a man, “To give that forgiveness, to give life, to recreate humanity, even His disciples doubt, and [some of them] go away.” Jesus asked a small group, ‘Do you also want to go away?’”

“Faith in Jesus Christ: how is my faith in Jesus Christ? Do I believe that Jesus Christ is God, the Son of God? And has this faith been life-changing? Does my faith make this year of grace begin in my heart, this year of pardon, this year of growing in nearness to the Lord?”

No One Deserves Faith

Faith is a gift, the Pope stressed, noting, No one ‘deserves’ faith nor can buy it. Therefore, we are to always be humble, repent and pray: ‘Forgive me, Lord. You are God. You ‘can’ forgive my sins.”

The Pontiff prayed that the Lord “make us grow in faith.”

The people, he noted, “sought Jesus in order that they might hear Him, because he spoke “with authority, not as the scribes speak.”

Also, he added, they followed Him because He healed people, because he performed miracles – but in the end, “these people, after seeing this, went away and they were all amazed, and glorified God.”

Praise

“Praise: the proof that I believe that Jesus Christ is God in my life, that He was sent to me to ‘forgive me,’ is praise; if I have the ability to praise God. Praise the Lord. This is free – praise is gratis.”

He noted the Holy Spirit gives us this feeling and ability to express this, bringing us to say: ‘You are the only God.’

The Pontiff concluded, praying that the Lord “makes us grow in our faith in Jesus Christ, God, who forgives us, who gives us a year of grace – and this faith leads us to praise.”

 https://zenit.org/articles/popes-morning-homily-you-cant-have-a-closed-heart-if-you-want-to-understand-jesus/