**Pity the Hypocrites

         In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 23, Jesus said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean." To cleanse our inside, we need the Lord, for only he can cleanse my heart and soul. If our inside is clean, our outside will be clean too. Hypocrites are to be pitied, for they don't realize that they cannot fool God nor us. Today's hypocritical politicians can be easily spotted. They are self-deceiving fools.

***Hell to Avoid at Any Cost!

        Early this morning I had a horrible, vivid dream. I am traveling with my younger son. We fly for some 17 hours to a remote foreign destination. When it's time for us to return home, we go to the city center to look for the place to get transportation to take us to the airport, but we have trouble finding it. We walk and look and somehow get separated. And I do not have a cell phone with me. I am not sure whether I should stay put for him to come back perhaps or go look for him. I decide to go look for him. Then I get further and further lost, having no idea where to go next. I am going to miss the flight for sure and do not know what my son is going to do. Now I must go find out where the airline company office is, go there and buy a ticket home on another flight, possibly on another day. I just hope that when I get home, my son is back too. The feeling I had was so horrible that I suddenly woke up. And the Lord right away made see that in my dream predicament, I at least had the hope of getting out of it; but once one lands in hell, there is absolutely no such hope. I believe this is the message the Lord wants me to post today.

**Christ Our Liberator

         When we truly know Christ, we are liberated! Those who do not know him or know him well enough yet spend all their time dealing with their own imperfections and end up imposing unnecessary miseries on themselves. They can be good people, but without Christ, they do not see the light of the Lord and have no defense against the attacks of the devil. We must all follow what Jesus commissioned the Eleven to do before his Ascension: "Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature." (Mark 16.15)

*No Looking Back for Christians

          There is no point in attaching ourselves to anything in the world, including our possessions, our accomplishments, our memories, and even our good times. All that's left behind will be gone instantly or in time. As Christians, our focus should always be on the Lord without ever looking back. In heaven, we shall live our new life enjoying every present moment.

**Believing in Our Own Prayers

         When we pray, we must pray from our very heart and believe that the Lord not only hears us, but also will respond to our petitions. That is, we also believe in our own prayers. We are not just nobody; we are his most beloved children!

***How Personal Is Your God?

           We need to establish a personal relationship with God, as we are often so advised. How far should we go? Since the Lord loves us with an infinite love, we need to go all out to open up to his love. We need to abandon ourselves to him completely to remain in him. We need to yearn for him and rejoice in him at all times. We must not fall short of attaining full union with him. This would please him the most and give us the greatest joy at the same time. 

Be Prepared to Give Up All Things

         With hundreds of wildfires burning throughout the state, we are now asked to stay indoors as much as possible, as the polluted air out there is very unhealthy to breathe in. The sunlight has turned red because of the heavy smoke. So far many people have lost their homes. My area is not immune from wildfires either. Should a fire happens quickly, I pretty much have to let everything go. I'll probably just grab the laptop I am using right now and flee. So we are all at God's mercy. Learn to be detached from everything except the Lord is the way to prepare ourselves. In the overall scheme of things, only having God matters.

*To Live Without Fear

          Jesus will come again to judge all of us. We may leave this world before his Second Coming, but we can't escaping facing him right after we die. If we are not prepared, we may be in for the shock of our whole existence. Take my advice seriously. Reconcile yourself to the Lord now so that you'll never experience fear anymore.

*JFA & AFJ

           JFA stands for "Jesus For all." He came into the world to die for all of us in order to save us. AFJ stands for "All For Jesus"—that's exactly how we should respond to his love for us.

***God Always Reveals the Truth

          In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 16, Jesus asked his disciple, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father." 
        When I first accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, I for the greater part became intellectually convinced and decided to take a leap of faith. To know without a doubt that Christ is the Lord and God has to be revealed by God himself. I know this because I've learned that when the Lord reveals a truth to me in my heart, I just know that it is true, no explanation needed. Intimate revelations from the Lord to your heart is one great beauty and joy of knowing the Lord.

**Letting God Shape Our Conscience

         I personally know of Catholics who are for abortion and/or gay marriage. Quite a number of prominent public figures also belong in that category. To follow Christ, we need to let him shape our conscience to be like his. Otherwise, you are not really with him. It is worse for a Catholic to go against the teachings of the Church than a nonbeliever who holds the same views. To imitate Christ is to be as conscientious as the Lord.

*Being Chosen by God

            In John 15, Jesus said to his disciples, "It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you." If you are already following the Lord, feel honored and blessed that he has chosen you to serve him. There is no more satisfying and rewarding role you can take on in this world! 

**Loving as the Lord Loves

          The love of Christ is absolutely pure. It is not tinted with sentimentality and is ego-free. We love not in order to please others; we love only because God so wills. Like the Lord, we love others in order to save their souls, regardless of how we are received. It is a clean love not attached to anything in this world.  

**How Evildoers Attack

         When evildoers are exposed and cornered, they panic and become like wild animals trapped. Since they have no truth on their side, all they can do is to lash out at anyone they consider threatening, verbally and physically with no good reason. They become totally hypocritical, irrational, crazy, and destructive. You see plenty of such examples today, for we live in a world full of evildoers.   

**The Lord's Most Inspiring Deed

           It came to me that the most inspiring of all the Lord's deeds on earth has to be his Resurrection! Ir shows that he is the life, that he lives forever, and that if we believe in him, we'll have life and live forever too. The Resurrection gives us the very hope we need, and I thank and praise my God for it.

*Amazing God!

         Here in California, we have some 500 wild fires burning at the same time. The sun through the heavy smoky air appeared like a bright red full moon. The thought came to me that even though the sun by volume is some 64 million times larger the moon, the Lord God had placed the much smaller moon close enough to us so that both appear about the same size in the sky, making a solar eclipse possible. Our God is truly amazing!

**Big Deals

           For some, being admitted into a prestigious university is a big deal. To others, getting a job at a great company is a big deal. When I was a student at UC Berkeley, I knew of one person who tried to get a job in Berkeley, for he loved the all-year-round weather there. After trying for over ten years, he finally succeeded. That must've been a wonderful deal to him. It's also a big deal for our government to be able to make a fair trade deal with some other countries. For us followers of Christ, to succeed in banning abortion nationwide would definitely be a big deal, but fundamentally an even bigger deal for us is to submit ourselves to the Lord so that we might become holy and spotless! For this would be a big deal to the Lord too.

*The wise and the Most Foolish*

         The most foolish live and behave as if God does not exist, whereas the wise live and behave knowing that God knows everything. The division between the two camps couldn't be greater, but Christ can turn the most foolish into wise ones if they will only turn to him.