BEAR THIS IN MIND WHEN “THE GOING GETS TOUGH”

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

We cannot love suffering for itself, but, aided by grace, we can love the will of God sufficiently to remain attached to it, even when it causes suffering.

God alone knows the sorrow which will result from His Will, for each one, until he sees the face of God.

Nevertheless, without knowing anything of it, without even wishing for such a knowledge, one can accept everything in advance, and love everything by considering it under this sovereign and beautiful form of the “holy will of God”.

– Laverty & Sons (eds), 1905

 

HAVE WE ACTIVELY KILLED EVERYTHING IN US THAT BELONGS TO EARTHLY LIFE?

4th AUGUST, BIBLE READING II (COLOSSIANS 3:1-5, 9-11)

Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ is revealed – and he is your life – you too will be revealed in all our glory with him.

That is why you must kill everything in you that belongs only to earthly life: fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god; and never tell each other lies. You have stripped off your old behaviour with your old self, and you have put on a new self which will progress towards true knowledge the more it is renewed in the image of its creator; and in that image there is no room for distinction between Greek and Jew, between the circumcised or the uncircumcised, or between barbarian and Scythian, slave and free man. There is only Christ: he is everything and he is in everything.

THE EARLY CHRISTIANS GAVE UP EVERYTHING MATERIAL FOR GOD. ARE WE ACCEPTING JESUS CHRIST AS PERSONAL LORD IN EVERY ASPECT OUR LIVES, SO THAT WE, TOO, QUALIFY FOR JESUS’ SAVING WORK?