*In a Hurry to Go to Heaven?

        If I know that I am heaven bound, do I want to go now or later? Of course, I look forward to being united with the Lord completely, but at the same time if I am going to be with him for all eternity anyway, what's the rush? Should the Lord ask me when I'd like to go, I'd probably say that I prefer to wait until some loved ones for whom I have been praying for decades have finally come to believe in you. That'd be a reasonable request, but I'll still let him have the final say.

**Learning from the True Guide

        The colleges talk about providing you with a well-rounded education to help you thrive in this world. But the Lord God teaches you how to live in freedom now and forever. God, being the truth, can reveal all we need to know to live in this world and not be of it. He is the only guide who can truly set us free. The time to learn all that is now when we are still on earth.

**Teaching the Truth

           This Fr. Corapi video just got posted. Again, he hit the nail on the head.  This is real teaching. Would that all priests have the courage to teach the truth and not be concerned about offending people or not..

**God in a League of His Own

        These thoughts relate to today's earlier post "True Beauty." We live in a physical world, so we seek beauty and pleasure in nature, architecture, music, etc. Thus we visit parks, castles, museums, and attend musicals, concerts, etc. But we fail to realize that we can experience beauty and joy plus peace in the Lord God! What he has to offer transcends everything our world offers. Every enjoyable thing you can find in the world simply pales in comparison with what you can experience in the Lord. For the former passes, while the latter lasts forever.

***Our Move Now***

         Today's Gospel reading comes from John 12. I am going to put together some verses and part of one to show you that we must absolutely pay attention to these words of the Lord. Jesus cried out and said, "Whoever believes in me not only in me but also in the one who sent me, and whoever sees me sees the one who sent me. If anyone hears my words and does not observe them, I do not condemn him, for I did not come to condemn the world but to save the world. Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words has something to judge him: the word I spoke, it will condemn him on the last day." What is made clear are the following: (1) Jesus and the Father are one. (2) Whoever rejects him gets himself condemned on the last day. We must clearly get these two points and decide what to do with ourselves. We are dealing with God!

***True Beauty***

        I saw a video presenting the most beautiful village in France. It was beautiful in a quaint way. It has history and some interesting natural rock formation. In any case, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but  there are definitely things we see or hear that we agree are beautiful. As I walked this morning, the Lord made me see that true beauty is to be felt in one's heart and soul—it is his peace. In heaven, what you see and hear will definitely be most beautiful, but the peace you experience in the Lord will surpass all that. Let me tell you that when you dwell in God, knowing that he loves and takes care of you, it is the most beautiful feeling this side of heaven.   

*Comforting Words

         In today's Gospel reading from John 10, we hear Jesus say to the Jews, "My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father's hand." These ironclad assurances are such a comfort for those who follow the Lord to hear!

***Ultimate Warning************

       I started this blog in 2009 and out of love have posted more than 11,200 messages, always extolling the God of Christ. Today, out of love I am going to post a most serious warning to those who consciously reject Christ. This needs to be made known. I don't intend to offend anyone. On the contrary, I wish everyone to get to heaven to enjoy eternal life.
         Jesus has come as the Messiah, fulfilling all the Old Testament prophecies. He claimed that he is the Son of God and had come to save us from sin. He proved that he has the power to forgive our sins by miraculously healing the lame and the sick. Here's what John wrote about Jesus in John 1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be." In John 14, Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." In Matthew 14, Jesus said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." Wow! That so many had seen the Resurrected Lord is undeniable. Back in John 10, Jesus knew that he was going to die and rise again, for he said to the Jews, "I lay down my life in order to take it up again. I have power to lay it down and power to take it up." Finally, the Apostles witnessed the Ascension of Jesus into heaven.”
         If you reject Jesus, then you reject all I've said above and more. This would amount to saying that Christ is not only not God, but that he is a liar, a phony, a false teacher, and that he never rose from the dead. If you turn out to be right, you gain nothing and still remain lost. But if you turn out to be wrong, then I know you'd wish that you were never born! Think about it. [Please help spreading this message to as many as possible for their sake and for the glory of God.]

**Evidence of Life After Death

        We have the first 20-minute video with a Scott Drummond sharing what he saw and how it changed his life forever after he was pronounced dead for 20 minutes. You would enjoy watching it, for it shows that life continues on after death and God exists. Scott also tells about the peace he experienced on the other side. The second 25-minute-long video is a follow-up, the first one being the main one to watch. I feel so blessed that I do not need to die to know that the soul lives on, God exists, and that I am going to enjoy peace and joy with the Lord forever.

***Jesus Is My Shepherd!

        Today's Gospel reading comes from John 10 in which Jesus spoke of himself as the good shepherd. He said, "The shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. He walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice." And I realized that I am one of his sheep! I can indeed claim that "the Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack" (Psalm 23:1). 

**God's Great Mercy*

         God's mercy endure forever (Psalm 106:1). His mercy is infinite, for he does not judge you as long as you still have time on earth or before his Second Coming. Accept this mercy, and heaven is yours. Reject it and you gain nothing and can lose everything. The wise take full advantage of God's great mercy by praying for it unceasingly.

*A Depiction of the World

         It's estimated that we now have 7.9 billion people worldwide. I wish I can say that all of them are in total obedience to God. A realistic description would be that we have 7.9 billion people at various stages of rebellion against God. If I plot a graph, I am likely to get a bell-shaped normal distribution with the most number of people in half rebellion against God. This is why Jesus came to us. Our prayer and hope is that the peak of this distribution will shift to the right toward total obedience to God. Surely God can beat statistics!

***Divine Mercy Prayer

         In these times when God desires that we pray, pray, and pray, besides praying the Rosary, I suggest you pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy too if you haven't done so yet. In the main part, you begin each decade by saying, "Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world." Then you recite ten times the prayer "For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world." Last night the Lord made me see that this short prayer is neat, clear, and to the point. Of course, we can make other specific requests, but mercy is what we generally need the most for now. We can pray for that and let the Lord administer it as he sees fit. Click here to learn how to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. God bless you all.

***Secret Blessings*

         As times goes on, many things continue happening and we don't even realize it until some time later. I used to live in a different city and heard that the neighbor across the street just had a new baby boy. I saw him once in a while in the following years when he played outside his house. Then one day the mother told me that her son was getting ready to go to college—I couldn't believe it! How could time have gone by so fast? Things have a way of sneaking up on us. I've mentioned that Christ is more real to me than any other living person I know and see. Apparently, I've been aware of his holy presence at all times for quite a while, so this feeling isn't new. Today, it dawned on me that before 2009, the year I started this blog, I never exactly felt this way. I now know that God's blessings can also sneak up on us without our being aware of it. When we live a secret life in the Lord, we receive his blessings in secret too. 

***Only One Savior

          In today's reading from Acts 4, Peter declared to the leaders of the people and elders that other than Jesus Christ, there is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved. We know that only God can save us, so Christ must be God. And there can be only one God, so Christ has to be our only Savior. Seeking salvation through anyone else is doomed to failure.

***All or Nothing with God

        We pray to God for many things, why not pray to him about everything? Would the Lord who loves you so much be happy if you are not with him completely? I don't think so. He has given all of himself to you so that you might live, shouldn't you give all of yourself to him too?  As I've said, with God it has to be all or nothing! We won't feel totally satisfied until we possess all of him. He has made us so that only complete abandonment to him can make us completely happy and content.   

*Cost of Rejecting the Best

        Again, I look at extreme cases to make me see things clearly. Suppose God has made salvation extremely difficult for us. Say we must go through many loops and meet all kinds of stringent requirements. Then even if we don't make it, the consequence understandably probably wouldn't be so bad. Now that the Lord has made salvation so simple and direct for us: basically, all we need to do is believe, I intuitively see that the consequence of not appreciating his great offer would be a lot more severe too.

*Jesus Tests Our Heart

        Jesus came to die for us so that we might have eternal life. Our proper response should be gratitude and joy, yet many ignore or outright reject him. I see that our hearts are being tested by the Lord. To a good extent, how we respond to him reveals how hard our heart is.