Blessed in Heaven

     This weeks Gospel reading Matthew 5 1-12 Jesus gives us what I consider to be the playbook for being a true believer.   In my opinion the Beatitudes give us a clear picture of what it is to be a follower of Christ and what to expect from the world.    In the first beatitude Jesus says "Blessed is the poor in spirit."  When I hear  poor in spirit I think of the times when I am tired and broken spiritually.  I guess you can say spiritually broke.  Oddly, those are the times when I feel the closest to Jesus. When all of my worldly possessions,  my wisdom, my planning  and everything fails… I always have Jesus.  Instead of relying on myself, I go  to my true source of consistent strength.  As a believer we know that its not us. It’s not our hard work. It’s not our amazing personality or any character trait, that gets us through life. It’s god’s Mercy. It’s simply  God’s will, Always. So when we a spiritually poor, we are blessed to have the support of Jesus .  

    Jesus went on to say ‘Blessed are those who mourn”  Now, we have all mourned before. We have all suffered some kind of loss that leaves you in a place of deep sorrow.  Those experiences are always challenging but, once again, in those times it is  God who has given me  strength.  Yes, the losses are painful and sometimes simply too much to deal with but if you can get out of your head and on your knees in prayer, Jesus is always there to comfort you.  I am not saying that it’s easy but It can be done.

    Then Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”  This is such departure from how we are taught to live. Especially as men. Meekness, or humility isn’t always looked upon as great character traits. Yet Jesus says the meek are blessed.  Humility is something that I work on all the time. I have the unfortunate experience of taking credit for what God has done in my life all too often.  The truth is in my heart I know that whatever happens in my life is all God’s work but my ego doesn’t always agree. If I can offer some sound advice, humble yourself before the lord does it for you.   Humility may not be as “cool” or “macho”   as being the chest beating, always on top winner but, it is essential in being a real follower of Christ.  

Further into the sermon Jesus says “Blessed are The Who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied”  A hunger for righteousness may lead you down a lonely path in this day and age.  Doing the right thing isn’t always popular and in most cases the opposite of what the crowd is doing. To live a life filled with righteousness is to be Christ like.  How many of us can do that all day.  I barely make a few hours. Yet, the hunger is there. I want to do better. I’m sure you do too. The hunger is what matters. The desire to be like Christ. That is the blessing in itself.  I say that because I believe to  attempt to live like Christ, as to have life that is full of blessings.  The blessing that only God can give. 

 

    Jesus goes on to say “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”    So I ask, how merciful are you?  When Jesus was speaking to his disciples he was saying be merciful.  Be forgiving.  I can tell you that having a hardened heart is something that steals the joy from every minute of your life.  Jesus says the merciful will receive mercy. The  true mercy  comes from no longer having a hardened heart towards others. More importantly a hardened heart towards  ourselves. Can you ignore the ignorance of others?  Do you have it in you to let go of the guilt you carry for some past sin. Imagine a life without the weight of hatred on your back.  Imagine a  life filled with pure unconditional love for others and yourself. That is the life that  Jesus promises for the merciful. 

    “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”  A pure heart for the lord. That’s what Jesus is asking for. A heart that is focused on the lord without any distractions from the world.  I call that “Keeping God first.”   Keeping God first means  you get into prayer with every a major decision, small decision, challenge, anything. Take the time to keep your mind and life centered around what God wants for you.  A heart that is purely in love with Jesus leaving no room for anything else to come before that.  That is a pure heart. A heart that belongs to the lord.

    Then Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”  In a world that seems to thrive of division and hate, peacemakers are becoming hard to find these days. I trust that even though most of the world has a different agenda it will be the peacemakers that bring us together. It will be the heart of a believer that will tilt this world in a better direction. I believe that in the end, no matter what, peace is the answer. It isn’t the easiest decision to make but in the end peace does prevail.  

    Jesus goes on to say “Blessed are the persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”   Doing the right thing is hard  even without  the persecution from others.  Adding ridicule and  persecution to it only makes It worse. Yet, that is who is blessed.   Although Jesus lived a sinless life and was tortured and crucified he never once cursed the people that did this to him.  If we can remember that the persecuted are blessed  in our daily interactions, how much better of world can we have?  Jesus showed us how to rise above persecution and judgement from others. He showed us how to rise above the world standards and have mercy on those that persecute us. 

 

    In the last beatitude Jesus says, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me”  Life as a Christian isn’t the easiest.  Lately, it seems like everything that Christ stood for is being overlooked.  Fighting and uprisings are taking place all over the world. People hating one another is becoming more and more common and accepted. So living how God wants is almost guaranteed to get you  ridiculed in some way.  Still Jesus says those are the people who are blessed.  Are you willing to go in the complete opposite direction as everyone else? Are you trying to be your best version of christ everyday? If so.. expect to be persecuted on earth but blessed in heaven.

-Anonymous

As Yourself

This Sunday’s Gospel is a very familiar one, Matthew 22:34-40. Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart. And He tells us that the second commandment is “like it”, to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Like a lot of concepts in the Bible, this is simple to say but difficult to accomplish. I think that the key is to start by loving God, but there seems to be more to it.

Let’s take a look at the tail end here, the “love your neighbor as you love yourself” part. It assumes that we love ourselves. Because it’s only if we love ourselves that we can love others. That’s not always the case; not everybody loves themselves. So how do we come to love ourselves? In two ways, I guess. First, we can learn to love God and rely directly on His love for us. We can pray and receive Communion and try to commune with God the best we can. And if through doing this we wind up realizing that God loves us, we can love ourselves.

Great.

But humans being humans, sometimes the way we learn to love ourselves, or not to love ourselves unfortunately, is from those around us. If we receive love from those around us, it’s easier to love ourselves. If we don’t receive love from those around us, it’s really difficult to love ourselves.

So, what’s our job, then? Our job is to express love to everyone we can. Perhaps that will make it easier for those people to learn to love themselves. It’s not always easy for people to connect to God directly, so we need to be that light of love for other people. We need to reflect, or “refract” is probably a better word, God’s love.

That’s not to say that our earthly love will ever be a substitute for God’s love. Our love will never be a substitute for someone else’s understanding that God loves them. But we still need to shower love on those around us. Like hitting the primer button on the lawn mower, maybe we can prime the pump for other people, so they can turn to God and experience His love for them directly.

Just a thought.

                        ~ The Older Brother

What could God want from me?

 This weeks Gospel reading is one of those popular ones that are often quoted. "Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God." This seems to be the part of this Gospel reading that most people walk away with. I have always been amazed at how deep in meaning scripture is though, and how the act of contemplating God's word always gives something more.

If you think about it, the Lord is clear about His expectations of us. He gives rather direct commandments. He gives us the Law and He gives us the Prophets as examples. He sent His only Son to teach us. If you consider these facts in light of the full Gospel, you may notice that even though God shows us The Way, He never violates our free will. Jesus allowed the rich man to walk away with all his wealth that he loved so dearly. When asked, the father did not refuse his prodigal son his share of his inheritance. Jesus freely and knowingly accepted death on a cross at the hands of his enemies. 

I would like to suggest to you that there is a deeper Wisdom in Scriptures that tests us and allows each one of us prove that we Love the Lord our God with our whole  hearts, our whole being, and our whole strength.

Surely when we do this, we give to God what is His.

☩Theophlus

 

Responding to God’s Invitation: RSVP

MT 22: 1-10

Gospel 10.11.20

For anyone who has received an invitation to a celebratory event, there appears to be either one or two common responses.  The first may be one of excitement and surprise, feeling honored to be thought of in such high esteem.  Another person may react with a sense of indifference and nonchalance immediately thinking ”How do I get out of this?”  I have been on both sides of this response.

Although everyone has the right to their own decision, the invited also has an obligation to at least respond to the host (RSVP).  In this story, those on the guest list blatantly snub the king by going about their business and ignoring the generous invitation.  Some even brutalized and killed the messengers sent by the king, after he extended the invitation a second time. 

This Gospel is one that speaks clearly to me.  The king (God) who appreciates and loves his people (us) has prepared a grand celebration for his son (Jesus). It is a wedding feast (our reunion with God through His Son) that is perfect in every way. Perhaps those who refused to even respond to the king felt it was not important enough to share in the king’s happiness?  Maybe the disrespectful guests were waiting for something better to come along?

To me, the moral of this parable-story is that God is constantly sending us invitations in many ways.  Sometimes through our families, our jobs and even by the way of the most unlikely stranger or situation  If you are taking the time read these reflections each week by the Fishers of Men, you are probably hungry and awaiting the magnificent feast that God has promised us.  Let us pray for one another that we not be sidetracked with the ordinary and mundane. Pray that we will RSVP the Lord now, and greet His invitation with a sense of excitement, joy, and humility. “Times a wasting!”  Hope to see you on the road to the feast! Pax, The Pilgrim.