In today's Gospel reading from Luke 14, Jesus challenged us. He said, "If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." Also, "Anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple." So we must make Jesus foremost in our lives if we wish to follow him. All his demands are justified if he were truly our God. Personally, I am so glad that he had made clear what's required of us. For without such guidance, we would be lost, not knowing whom to follow nor how to live our lives so that we may be set free and gain eternal life. Meet his challenge and we'll be greatly rewarded in the end!
Sunday, September 4, 2022
***Our Greatest Offer to God***
The greatest offer we can make to God is to surrender ourselves completely to him so that we become 100% obedient. This enables us to love him with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. Guess what: Now we experience the greatest possible freedom this side of heaven!
Saturday, September 3, 2022
***A sin Realized!
Since I am doing the First Saturday devotion, I went to confession this morning. Confession officially starts about ten minutes after Mass is over. I have learned that if you are the first one to receive Holy Communion, you are likely to be the first or at least near the first in line for confession. But today when I saw that many people were trying to get to the line as quickly as possible, the Lord made me see that it is a sin to leave the pew to join the confession line right after receiving him when the Mass hasn't even ended yet. I should have spent that time thanking, savoring, and adoring the Lord on knees, and not thinking about anything else. So I withdrew from the line and went back to the church in the afternoon to confess this sin. I am glad to have realized that what I thought was a clever thing to do clearly did not come from the Lord.
Friday, September 2, 2022
**God Is Serious
When you have a most serious intent, you do something most serious to fulfill it. This was exactly what God did when he gave his only Son to die on a cross in our place in order to save us from eternal death. This is going to the extreme all right. Saving all of us must be his most serious intent. There is no way you can say that the Lord did all that for nothing! So let's get serious and know that we can now be saved from sin!
***Our Only Savior*
We were born sinners. We can try to stop sinning on our own, but what guidelines should we follow? Our own or someone else's? Living in this secular, material world filled with temptations, how long can we remain untouched? But we have Christ who can not only take away our sins after we repent of them, but also remove our tendency to sin as well! For he is our Lord and creator, the only one capable of fundamentally changing us to save us from sin.
*Motives of the Heart
In today's first reading from 1 Corinthians 4, Paul writes that the Lord will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will manifest the motives of our hearts. If our motives are always good and pure, even if we fail in what we do, we do not need to worry about God's judgment. Know the Lord well and he'll take care of your motives.
Thursday, September 1, 2022
**Becoming like God
We surrender ourselves to God so that can become like him. Once we become like him, we experience tremendous freedom and satisfaction.
**True Humility
One who is humble is not affected by what others think of him nor what he thinks of himself; he only cares about what God thinks of him.
**Responding to God's call
In today's Gospel reading from Luke 5, Jesus called Peter, James, and John, and they left everything and followed him. This is way the we should respond to the Lord's call, and he is always calling us! He may want us to pray more, to fast, to tell a friend about Christ, to stop complaining or worrying, to watch less TV, to get up early in the morning, etc. We must respond without hesitation. It does take discipline, but to say "I'll do if for your sake" to the Lord each time starting out can get you going. Soon you'll know the joy and satisfaction of always answering his call.
**Be Truly Wise in the World
In today's first reading from 1 Corinthians 3, Paul writes that the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God and that the thoughts of the wise, as it is written, are vain. To me, the world knows how to make gains for itself well, but what profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? (Matthew 16:26) We all are going to depart from this world one day. True wisdom is following the Lord now so that you gain life for all eternity. It goes way beyond and above the wisdom of the world.
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
*God's Powerful Presence
Communion experience. The LORD was so powerful that I almost stopped breathing freely. I didn't mind that at all as I had experienced that before when I was praying, reading, blogging, or hearing something special said. When the Spirit of God takes over, you gladly submit yourself to him.
**Most Beneficial Thing to Do
It dawned on me this morning that attending Mass is the most beneficial of all the things I do. When l go to Mass, I get to receive the LORD in the Holy Eucharist, enter into union with him, and be assured again of going to heaven, not to mention the blessings I receive continuously throughout my life as a result of it. Nothing else I do can make such great gains.
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
**Prerequisite to Exaltation
To forget about yourself is to forget about your ego. Without an ego, God is ready to exalt you.
**Christ Makes Us Beautiful
Communion experience. I was so grateful that the Lord made me see all my warts and faults so that I might become more perfect. If you are not happy about yourself, go to Christ to let him make you beautiful.
**Banishing the Ego
Yesterday I misunderstood someone and said something that could have offended him. If I did offend him, I should appropriately feel sorry about that. Then I sensed that perhaps that person no longer thought highly of me—I instantly realized the presence of ego. What people think of me should never be my concern; it's doing the right thing for the sake of the Lord that I need to focus upon only. The ego is to be banished forever!
'**A Christian's First Duty
Don't ever believe that God has made you so that and you can't change. Since God has created you, surely he can change you for the better. In fact, a Christian's first duty is to grow holier and holier. This is how we can get close to God.
Monday, August 29, 2022
*Contrasting Fires*
The fire of hell is most horrible, for it is to inflict punishment on the damned forever. On the other hand, the fire of the Holy Spirit is most gentle and sweet, for it burns our sins away and enkindles our love for God. Enjoy the fire of the Holy Spirit now to avoid the fire of hell forever.