*Christmas Present for the Lord

        Give your heart to God as your Christmas present for him. The heart still remains within you; giving it to him simply permits him to transform it to his heart's content. We and God become one when our hearts become one. It's a sheer win-win joy! 

**God to Be Praised!*

        We petition and thank God, but often neglect to praise him. While petitioning and thanksgiving center upon what we'd like to receive and what we have received, respectively, from God, praising is centered upon God alone, most likely most popular in heaven. In the Charismatic Renewal Movement of the Church, praising God has been the first order of business, and wondrous things happen as a result. Of course, the vocabulary for praising God is rather limited and this explains why your hear God being praised in tongues. You see, speaking in tongues is not something mysterious, but simply the natural outflow from us with an intense desire to praise God. Praise the Lord as often as you can to receive great blessings from him. 

*Rallying Cry*

        Today's entrance antiphon from Psalm 24: O gates, lift high your heads; grow higher, ancient doors. Let him enter, the king of glory! As 2017 is coming to a close, we are also getting closer to Jesus' 2nd Coming. Here is my rallying cry to all who can hear: Let the God of Christ enter! Open your heart! If you shut him out, you will be shut out by him. Would you rather end up to be all alone than go over to his side to join him to be taken care by him forever? . . . . .  

**The One to Live For

        We all need something to live for. When there is nothing to live for, people experience despair, and contemplate suicide. My former piano teacher live for music and other artists I know for their art. Many parents who do not do well live to make sure that their children will have a brighter future. For me, living for Christ is absolutely the best, for he is the eternal loving God. He fills my life with hope and will grant me the brightest possible future I could ever wish for. 

Love Is Sufficient

        Is God a mystery? There is so much we do not know about God, but at the same time we can attain union with him and feel that we have known him for all eternity. In fact, once I realized that he is all love, there was no more need for me to know more about him. Love alone is sufficient.

***Union With God for All!*

        Union with God is loving God with all you've got, the giving of yourself to God. It is an unspoken, simple but profound, most intimate relationship with the Lord. You open yourself 100% to him and he communes with you freely. It is imitating how God the Father and God the Son are in each other. Above all, it is what God desires from us. Union is achieved by submitting yourself completely to God. When that happens, he takes over and accomplishes all that's impossible for you to accomplish. It's letting God be God. We struggle hard only because we have not let God reign over our private little kingdom. Union is for you and me, for everyone! Why do you not consider it? Is it because you don't think you are good enough? Then let God make you good enough! Is it because you don't think he can make it happen to you? Then you don't believe that nothing is impossible with God! You don't need to be a mystic or saint first; it is in union that they become mystics and saints. Short of union, you remain struggling through your life, which strictly speaking, is rebelling against God.

**Beware of Slipping*

        Life and death seems to be such a pair of opposites, yet they are seamlessly connected, for we can slip from life into death in an instant. I got this feeling when I felt dizzy once after neglecting to take my medication for a short time. Another time I fell, suffered a concussion, and momentarily lost my consciousness. So is heaven and hell a pair of opposites. Here exists a chasm between the two that's impossible to cross, but slipping from our present state into either one of them can happen in an instantly too. Therefore, beware of this to be sure that we do not end up where we do not want to go.

Faith and Truth

        God is our truth and this remains true forever whether we believe in it or not. If we are not connected with God, we are simply lost. If we have faith in God, then we are saved, as Christ had demonstrated to those who believed in him. Faith connects us to the truth, making all the difference to us.    

Journey of Love.

        We get to know God through the following possible stages. Of course, many never reach stage 6, but are still saved. (1) We feel the emptiness of life. (2) We seek God. (3) We check out Christ and find that there are sufficient reasons for us to believe in him. (4) That little bit of early faith makes us take the plunge, accepting him as our Savior. (5) You wish to know him even more and press on. (One common mistake is that some erroneously believe that once you have accepted Christ, you are saved forever. Then they slack off and put their salvation in jeopardy again.) (6) Another critical point is reached: should you surrender to Christ completely? If you do, the Lord starts taking charge of your life completely. As he continues to transform you into a new creature, you become less attached to the world and experience more and more peace and freedom. (7) You feel God's presence, his power and love, and start to fall deeply in love with God. (8) Finally, you desire union with him and attain it, aided greatly by the Holy Eucharist. All in all, it's an exciting journey. It is exciting because you are directly involved.

Love Banishes Fear

        Christians are not only to rejoice in Christ always, but they are to become fearless. We need to fear God only if we are not with him. Once you belong to him, he banishes all your fears, for now you are with the Lord who is in charge of all things that exist, their sole creator. He gives and he takes away. He creates and he destroys. But he is always love.

God Is Not a Crutch

        People accuse Christians of believing in God because they look for some kind of a crutch for support. I had never felt that way. If I were ill and desperately need some medicine for healing, I might try anything I can get my hands on – this would be looking for some kind of a crutch. When I sought God, starting out I didn't even want to believe in him. I gave in only after I discovered how truly beautiful he was. So it was God drawing me, not me looking for a crutch.

**God Wants Us Back Always

        Relative to God our Lord, we are lowly, unholy, frail, and useless on our own, yet he loves us and is eager to raise us to his level. No matter how immense that gap is between him and us, if we love him back and it is gone. We are the prodigal sons and daughters, and as long as we return to the Father, we are welcomed back into his family. Through the Holy Eucharist, we can even attain union with the Holy One! If you are not with God at all, the gap between you and him is infinite. But just remember that he can make that gap disappear anytime you so wish.    

*Restoring Our Beauty

        We are beautiful only if we are beautiful to God. In reality, we are always beautiful to God, our creator and Father; it is sin that make us look filthy and ugly. So just ask him to take away our sins and we'll be beautiful for good and to ourselves too.

**More Precious Than Our Soul*

        What is more precious than our soul? God our creator! For without God, our soul would be lost forever. With him, he can heal our soul or even create a new soul for us, for nothing is impossible for him! This is the God you can trust with all your soul.    

Sensible Planning

        We came into the world penniless and will leave the world and be penniless again. So it would be sensible and appropriate for us to will that all the money we have borrowed from the Lord during our lifetime be given away for his glory after we leave this world. 

**Giving Away Your Heart

        I recall my favorite saying of St. Bernadette's which I first posted back in 2009: "If we receive Jesus with love and make sure that he dwells happily within us, he is bound to pay us rent." Today the thought came to me that letting Jesus own our heart is even better than having him rent it, for as owner, he will have to do all the maintenance work, while we get his blessings anyway.      

**God Is Our Joy!

        Philippians 4.4: Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! We are exhorted to rejoice throughout the Scriptures. To be Christian is to rejoice in God always. It's hard to imagine that one can love Christ and not smile. The thought of God alone should make our hearts bubble with joy. We are so blessed to have a God who loves us to death, who is infinitely merciful, and who has revealed to us his plan of salvation, clearing the whole way for us to enjoy eternal bliss with him in heaven. So let your heart leap for joy! God is not only the source of our joy, he is our great joy! 

*Important Consideration

        If you believe that you do have a soul, that you do not just become nothing after you die, then looking into the afterlife and the existence of heaven and hell becomes absolutely necessary if you do have a sound mind and some common sense. If you ignore it, you should at least understand what your reason is. Gambling with your money is being foolish. Gambling with you soul is far beyond being foolish.