Prayer Prompt before reading LK 14:25-33 Come, Holy Spirit, teach me how to pray well, interpret the Scriptures for me so that I may know the Truth about who God the Father is and God the Son so that I may know who I am.
“EVERYONE OF YOU WHO DOES NOT RENOUNCE ALL HIS POSSESSIONS CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE.” LK 14:25-33
Humbly submit your will to God (thy Will be done) and consecrate yourself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through Mary and Joseph.
Today, Jesus outlines a follower of Christ, a disciple. It is difficult. There will be sacrifices, persecution, daily crosses, and suffering. We do not need to look for suffering it will come as a part of life. We are born into a battlefield not a picnic field.
If we put our suffering in the right perspective and accept it as a gift offering it up with Christ’s suffering it helps us to be purified and can be used as a weapon against Satan (Padre Pio). With God’s grace, love and forgiveness we can bear it all. Give glory to God. Peter Kreeft says, “The worst suffering on earth is nothing but a small cold compared to the glory of heaven.”
It is wise to remind ourselves that we are sinners due to the Fall. We wake with an inclination to sin. Everyone is broken. We need God. We need a Savior. Today, our Savior reminds us that He is more important than those closest to our hearts on earth, our families. He is more important than our own life. Why? Our lives are about relationships.
The Fall created a broken relationship with the Father. Jesus is the only Way to cross over the chasm that Adam and Eve created. We are created to love, to be saints, which means enter heaven and be back with the One who loves us and wants to give His children every good thing. He wants us to know how much He loves us so He sent His only Son to show us His love. Everyone’s story has to do with the Man we are all carrying our crosses to and to meet some day. What will you have to show for your efforts? How much love did you put into each act?
If we are to gain eternal life, our will must be totally dedicated to our Lord. HE MUST BE THE CENTER! Then, we will live a rightly ordered life. Our relationships will be rightly ordered and this brings peace. Consequences from Adam and Eve’s Fall give us daily crosses to carry (sickness, tragedy, cancer, blindness, weight problems, diabetes, divorce, separation, fatigue in daily work, unmotivated, anxiety, depression, fear, loss of a loved one, loss of a job, homeless, addiction) but not one of them are as bad as losing our soul or our faith in Jesus.
After baptism, if we commit a mortal sin we cut ourselves off from God. This is a greater tragedy. Jesus teaches our generation of electronics a valuable lesson today. Many times our electronics are the very possessions that we commit mortal sin with or we get the ideas to commit mortal sin from these possessions.
“Everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”
We must totally and completely give all to Jesus. We cannot sit on the fence or have one foot in and one foot out. Jesus forces us to make a choice. There is no fence in following Christ. “You either gather with me or you scatter”. I often play this game with our Lord, but I know with His grace I will one day have the courage to be all in! All in is a requirement of a Christian disciple to enter into heavenly bliss!
Today’s challenge: Take a week long break from an electronic or any material possession that is leading you away from God and into sin. Detach yourself from a possession that you rely on more than Lord.
Be a servant, become a saint!
#Christian YODO (You Only Die Once; we will live again!)
212 (the one extra degree that makes all the difference), God gives all; our radical response to this love is all in. Today, take one more step to all in.
The only possessions you need to cling to is your Bible and your rosary!
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