**Great to Be in God

        When we are in God or God is in us, we become pure in every way: pure in thoughts, words, deeds, our motivation, our love, etc. This is why being in God makes us feel so good. (He has made us this way.)

***Be Filled with God

        The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Joy! Anyone filled with the Holy Spirit can't help being on fire with great zeal for the Lord God. Without the Holy Spirit, we would appear to be rather depressing or pitiable. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to submit yourself fully to the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity. Anyway, whether it be the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, it is total submission to God that sets you free. Anyone or anything other than God can only enslave us. This is the spiritual warfare we're involved in. Be filled with God and you are saved and safe. Otherwise, you are lost and lose.

*Keeping Our Conscience Clean

        We are given a conscience by God, but that conscience gets muddy as we continue sinning, "trapped" in this secular world in which evil is real! To get our conscience cleansed and restored so that we can see clearly what's good and what's evil, we need to go to God from whom we received our conscience. A super sharp, clean conscience protects us from sinning, thus preserving our inner peace. The worst feeling is knowing that we have offended the One who loves us the most. Remain in union with the Lord is the best way to keep our conscience pristine. 

*What True Love Demands

        Do you really love someone (yourself)? If you think only about getting a good education, finding a good job, having good health, making money, seeking material comfort . . . do you think you can make your loved one truly happy? I think you know the answer, but you still hope that you can, as you do not know anything better. This is the common situation I see. If you truly love someone, whether it be your father or mother, your brother or sister, your own son or daughter, your good friend or yourself, you would want that person to be truly happy forever! Eternity is real and earthly existence only transitory. To truly love someone is to make sure that the person (yourself) will be happy forever, not just to seek only pseudo happiness on this earth. 

***God Calling and Waiting

        If Jesus bugs you in any way, it only shows that you are running away from him, that you need him, and that he is calling you. Solid proof: If you turn to him, go to him, become totally reconciled with him, you experience freedom, peace, and joy you never had before.

God Fills My Cup

        Communion experience. My cup overflows (Psalms 23.5). I love the Lord overwhelming me with his love!

**"Take Our Hearts, O Lord"

        At Mass, after the Eucharist Prayer is said, the priest asks us to lift up our hearts, and we respond by saying "We lift them up to the Lord." It's easy to picture that I take my heart, place it in my hand, and offer it to God. Then I thought it'd be more "appropriate" to just let the Lord take my heart and do whatever he wishes with it. That is, our hearts belong to him now.

**Godly Humility

        Today is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. Jesus asked John the Baptist to baptize him. Of course, he is all holy and didn't need to be baptized at all, so it impresses me greatly that he should want to be treated as one of us all sinners. (Later, he also washed the feet of his disciples.) He humbles me, making me love him even more.

**Quest for God

        Let's all remember that our goal is know God, to "capture" him, you might say. That is why we study Scriptures, listen to inspiring talks, read about the saints, meditate upon spiritual things, make our churches beautiful, etc. The risk is that we can become habitual in doing all these things and forget that we can go to the Lord directly for best results. Seriously, you can achieve union with God by opening up yourself entirely to him and through receiving the Holy Eucharist. Once you possess him (or is possessed by him), all other things become secondary. Always know that the means are not your end.

**God Bless All Peoples

        I came across this YouTube video on Afghanistan. The country has been at war for many decades, causing so much suffering to its people. Those who have survived are still doing their best to eke out a living. I saw that the people did not even recognize the American flag, which lead me to believe that they did not really understand what's going on in the outside world. Anyhow, I see the Afghans as a beautiful people and am moved with compassion for them. Surely the Lord God loves them even more. They might not know Christ, but he will surely judge them fairly. If you have some 20 minutes, the video is worth watching.

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