*****Do You Realize That . . .

the more you surrender yourself to God, the freer you feel and become? This is how he has made us! 

**Another Good Question

         You claim that you believe in God, the God of Christ, but can he depend upon you to do the work for him? In other words, can he trust in you to always do what he wants you to do? 

**Another Cause for Joy

        Revelation 2.10: "Remain faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life." This is the reward the faithful shall receive from the Lord. It alone is enough to keep us rejoicing unceasingly! 

*****In Solitude with God (True Freedom)***

        We don't have an oxymoron here, for the Lord is ever present and we cannot possibly exclude him. As a matter of fact, we should always welcome and embrace his holy presence. I enjoy it so much that my solitude with him turns into an exquisitely beautiful experience, knowing that I've been liberated from the world and now belong to him alone—this is true freedom! 

**Most Consoling Words

         After the Resurrection, Jesus appeared to the eleven disciples to commission them to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that he had commanded them. His last words to them were "Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age." They were absolutely consoling to all of us.

*****Some Absolutely Serious Words*****

        If you don't believe in or accept Christ as your Savior, it's not something you can easily brush aside. For you must be able to prove that he never existed or he is a phony or he just came and died for nothing! Otherwise, you become one most foolish, insensitive, and ungrateful person in existence. You are foolish because you put yourself on the road to self-destruction. (In Matthew 10, Jesus said, Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.)

***No Christ, No True Joy*****

        I know the Lord well enough to declare unequivocally that one can never be truly happy without knowing the God of Christ. Any happiness you find sans Christ is pseudo and short-lived, while the joy of Christ is experienced by the soul and everlasting. You won't know this until you have tasted the Lord yourself. 

***Only Two Possible Outcomes***

        In Matthew 25:29, Jesus says, "To everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." Let me use myself as an example to show you that this totally makes sense. When I first asked the Lord to take away my ego, he responded decisively in a couple of weeks. I didn't expect that and was amazed. I opened up more, giving him more freedom to change me. More results and more amazement until I finally felt in love with the Lord and surrendered to him. Now I am in full union with him. The other part is the going-downhill part. You simply let yourself go in the opposite direction, falling further and further away from God and end up losing your very soul. 

*****God Gives the Best*****

        Communion experience. The Lord God goes way beyond keeping me alive on earth; he raises me to the highest possible level of existence. I now belong to him forever and is heaven bound! You can't possibly top that.

***Secret of Inner Peace***

        In Matthew, Jesus gave so many good teachings to his disciples. For example, he told them to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. He also taught them to stop judging others, and told Peter to forgive any brother who sins against him not just as many as seven times, but seventy-seven times. Come to think of it, if we can truly do what Jesus has taught us here, it would not be possible for us not to experience peace! This is how the infinitely merciful Lord is able to endure the innumerable offenses we commit against him.