*Contrasty Effects

        The love of money causes us to do evil. By contrast, a pure heart enables us to preserve inner peace.

**Letting God Inspire You

        Alfred Cortot, the renowned French pianist of the the 20th century once said, "You should convey the music not just through the notes, but through some kind of inspiration drawn from its immortal spirit." This inspires me not to become a better piano player, but to become a better Christian. Imagine how the Holy Spirit of God can inspire us if we open up to him. The Lord is always yearning to be one with us; we are the ones who are usually reluctant to cooperate. So open wide to let him inspire you with his love, and you'll be filled with hope and zeal, feeling uplifted at all times. 

***Created for God*

        I do feel that there is no one in this world I can fully trust and rely upon. Close family members and friends can make me feel good to a certain degree, but ultimately, I am still alone. No so with the Lord, for I feel that he is always with and for me, warts and all. He never gives up on me as long as I live. This is exactly what we all need. We were truly created for him. 

**Best Thing for Us in This World

        Well-wishers on various occasions commonly wish others good health as if it were the most important thing for them. I suppose if you do not consider God, it is rather important. And they wish others success in whatever they do. Of course, success here usually implies making a lot of money. Then they also wish others happiness, but how do you acquire happiness? Anyway, we all more or less become worldly in this world. If I wish someone go to heaven, I am sure I would most likely offend that person. My point is that good health, becoming rich, and happiness in this world are not really the best things for us. The only thing that's truly good for us is knowing God

***Only Source of Mercy

        We can be merciful to others, but our mercy is only temporary and always limited, while God's mercy is forever and infinite. Only God can save our souls. If you need mercy, you must go to him, the God of Christ, for there is not another source besides him. 

**Our Most Urgent Task

        The reality is that we live in a sinful world and that should make fighting evil our most urgent task, for our souls are at stake! This means that we must choose God to lead us in this battle. If you don't see this, then you've already been deceived or captured by evil.

*Our Role in Serving God

        The first Joyful Mystery of today's Rosary, The Annunciation. God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary to tell her that he had chosen her to bear his only Son on earth. We must realize that as God's children, we each are given a role to play too, albeit how we are called may not be so dramatic and what we are asked to do is more ordinary. It's serving God humbly in our assigned role well that makes life meaning and helps him accomplish his plan for our good.

**Ego and Inner Peace

        As long as your ego remains active, you won't have inner peace. If you let God's will override yours, you begin to starve your ego. Once his will and your will become one, you are free and will enjoy inner peace. 

*****Transfiguration Joy

        As I was praying the 4th Luminous Mystery of the Holy Rosary, The Transfiguration of the Lord, this morning, a great joy burst forth from my interior and took complete possession of me. I felt that the Lord totally enveloped me. I didn't know whether I was crying or laughing or both, as I was overwhelmed by it. I recovered only after I finished praying the whole decade. This is so different from experiencing some joy in the world. You feel good for a while and it's forgotten. The joy from heaven comes from the Holy Spirit and makes a permanent impression on your soul. It's not something you can expect or suppress. It overcomes and frees you at the same time. You don't need to see the Lord to know that he is indeed real and personal.

**Jesus the Compelling One

        Go thru the four Gospels to see if you can find a single thing you think Jesus did wrong. You'll find none. On the other hand, if you are open-minded, you'll find so many impressive, amazing things he did showing that he is God and absolutely trustworthy. You must accept or reject him as long as you are still alive on earth. There's no one else as compelling as he, for no one else is God. Reject him and you risk losing your soul. 

**Sign God Dwells in You*

        Follow Jesus faithfully and one day you find yourself no longer worry or complain about anything. Now you know that the Lord dwells comfortably within you.  

***Everything Is Accelerating

         For millennia, the world had remained pretty much the same. Then Industrial Revolution started in the 18th century. Within the last century, the advance in science and technology has truly accelerated. As a result, materialism has pretty much displaced God, accelerating immorality and godlessness. You can be sure that the Second Coming of Christ is also fast approaching. Everything is fast coming to an end. I may not see it in my lifetime, but this is what I feel now.

***Being Nice ≠ Being Saved

        Being a nice person and being one obedient to God are two different things. You can be a very nice guy, even believe in God, but not follow him in every way, and your salvation remains uncertain. On the other hand, you may even be a bad sinner, but despite your failings, you do your best to obey God to become holier, you can be sure that you will receive salvation. In today's world, it's sad to see that there are many who claim that they believe in Christ, but since they think they have figured out how they should live their life, they follow their own ways and go against some of the Lord's teachings. This is a case of overruling God and the consequences can be most severe! Don't forget, with God it must be all or nothing. 

***Finding Peace in Christ

        True permanent inner peace can only come from the God of Christ when you have reconciled yourself completely to him.  There is not another way.  You can consider this to be a natural law, for that's how God has made us.

**We Are Not Unnoticed

         Do we just somehow happen to be born into this world, grow old and die, not knowing what life is all about? The fact is that there is plenty of evidence showing that God exists and that there is a spiritual world which we enter after death. Evidence further shows that those in that world actually see and know what we do on earth. Of course, logically, God should know everything about us. So the spiritual world exists right next to us, you could say, even though we don't see it. And we slip right into it after shedding our body. This awareness that our life is completely exposed should help us live a better life.

****Going to Christ Directly****

         In my lifetime, I have attended numerous spiritual conferences and heard many inspiring speakers. Some of them uplifted me for a few days, a week, maybe longer, but the effect is never long lasting. Reading about the saints helped me more. Now that I've always gone to Jesus directly, I wonder why people don't do that when they want to know him. I just received the announcement about a Saint Joseph Summit. It's an online conference you can register and attend. The list of over 50 illustrious presenters is impressive. I am sure they will inspire a lot of people. But I can't help wondering that if our ultimate goal is to know Jesus, why don't we go directly to him? Why do we need to go through many other fellow brothers and sisters to go through another saint to help us reach Jesus? Jesus helped all the saints directly, surely he will do the same to us. If you don't get all the help you need from Christ, could it be that you didn't go directly to him? Or perhaps you seek the Lord, but your heart is are not completely open to him yet? For if your heart is, you would want go to him directly. If not, you can go thru a thousand speakers and won't know him much better. 

***Evil of Human Trafficking

        I've posted about human trafficking before. To me, this is an evil that's as bad as abortion. Thank God that we have Tim Ballard and his organization Operation Underground Railroad devoted to fighting this horrible crime. When you pray to end abortion, please pray for ending human trafficking too.

*Nipping Sin in the Bud

        If you still have some conscience left, you would know it when you are about to sin. No matter how feeble that red light you "see" might be, obey it and you'll be happy that you did later on. Think of sinning as diving into an abyss with no safety net down there to catch you.