"Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48)

Monday, August 14, 2023

**Mutual Respect

        How effective our prayers are is directly proportional to how sincere and  submissive we are to God. If we trust and listen to him, he trusts and listens to us in turn.  

**Glaring Need for God*

        We have a big problem with sin that robs the world and ourselves of peace. So we definitely need God's help. Then I thought of all our frailties and all kinds of weakness and shortcomings which have nothing to do with sin, all the more we need God now.  

Sunday, August 13, 2023

*****How God Loves Us!

        Communion experience. The Lord giving himself up for us—the greatest act of love!  

***A Must Feeling to Experience***

        You feel good physically after you take a shower. And you feel completely free after you confess all you sins and the Lord makes your soul all clean. This feeling you must experience if you ever wish to enter heaven one day. 

*****Key to Increasing Your Faith*****

         In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 14, After Peter realized that it was Jesus walking toward him on the sea during the night, he said to him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." Jesus said, "Come." Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" 
          Faith is something that I still need to understand more. How can I increase my faith? Should I believe that I can heal others and step out to do it? Or must I wait until the Lord has given me this gift first? The only time my prayer worked miraculously was the time when my eldest son suffered a virus attack and was near death at age 27. (I've mentioned this in a previous post.) I walked up to him in ER and blessed him on the forehead with the sign of the cross, proclaiming "Be healed in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." He recovered and was discharged from the hospital on the 4th day. That time, the words just came out of my mouth without premeditation nor hesitation. Why can't I do this to someone else again today? Does this have anything to do with faith? Jesus' last saying to Peter above is most helpful to me. We are not to go out to do anything, just because we think that we have great faith. But whatever we are called to do, we need to do it without a doubt—this is the key! In Mark 11:24, Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours." This is it! To increase your faith by forcing yourself to believe won't work. The right way is to believe without any doubt.

Saturday, August 12, 2023

***God's Pure Love***

        Our love for others are not that pure. The feeling is commonly triggered by sexual attraction. Of course, sometimes we love others when we realize that it's our duty or do feel the pity or compassion for someone. Here the love is more pure. Then there are saints who love God so much that they are able to love others with God's pure love. As for God's love for us, it's always 100% pure, completely selfless and unaffected by anything external. His love is so great that he's ever ready to lay down his own life for any one of us. (John 15:13)

*****Proud of Our God

         Today I am so proud of my God, for he is such a holy, perfect, loving Father. He loves all his children magnanimously. He's humble and selfless, most patient, considerate, and understanding. His sole wish for us is that we return to him to live happily with him forever! There is no one else who can possibly be better than our God.

**The Lord Is My Anchor*

        Christ is my light, my strength, my rock, my shield, my refugee . . . He is also my anchor, not to weigh me down, but only to keep me from ever losing him.  

Friday, August 11, 2023

***Most Wonderful Faith*****

        Faith in the God of Christ is most wonderful, for it restores your relationship to your heavenly Father and readies you for inheriting all that he has!

***Simple Logical Feeling***

        Since the Lord God created me out of love, of course I want to belong and return to him.

****Praising and Rejoicing in God's Mercy

        I appreciate God's great mercy. As a sinner, I can go to him, repent all my sins, and I am good to go to heaven again! What a fantastic grace! The Lord can't save me, only if I reject him. How beautiful it is to embrace and live in his mercy!  

***Why We Need God*

        In this world, if you call someone names or hit someone, that person is likely to retaliate in kind. So to have peace in his world, everyone practically needs to become saints, and that's unlikely to happen. This shows how much we need the God of Christ, for he is the true God who can transform us, and even if we fall short, we can get forgiven. Perfect peace will prevail only in heaven, another reason we need to believe in God.

Thursday, August 10, 2023

***Getting Me Ready

         Communion experience. The Lord was getting me ready to meet him in person!

*****Rejoicing in God***

        In today's Gospel reading from John 12, Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me." Of course, I rejoiced in hearing Jesus say "... where I am, there also will my servant be." I knew where I'd be and that the Father would honor me—the Lord made my day!

***Have God, Have Everything***

        When you have the Lord God, everything else fades away, for all such things no longer have any power over you. Imagine that you are now before the Lord and see all his glories and beauty, I don't believe that you would ever want to hang on to the materials goods to which you're enslaved. So start cutting your ties to the world right now to be sure that you will see God's glories and beauty one day.

*****Way to Holiness*****

        When I prayed this morning, I saw it as an act of obedience to God. Let's make everything we do an act of obedience to the Father.

****Going the Extra Mile for God

        A flat board placed across a gap can sag under loads, but if you make it slightly arched, it becomes a lot stronger. You see this done in architecture and construction. The point is that to counteract any tendency we want to overcome, we need to push back beyond the neutral position. This principle applies to living our spiritual life too. For example, if you wish to overcome temptation, not seeking it usually is not good enough—you need to actively seek to avoid any such occasion. Eradicating ego is another case. To succeed, become extra humble is necessary. In general, not sinning is laudable; but to be excellent, go all out to glorify the Lord. In Matthew 5:41, Jesus counseled, "Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles." For the Lord, we should at least double our effort. 

Wednesday, August 9, 2023

**Praying Anew*

        When we pray to God, it's easy to think about something else or rush through it. But if you mean business, you will want to take your time, focus upon the Lord alone, and mean every word you say from the bottom of your heart. Then you'll feel the Lord drawing you close to him. Prayer will now be an unforgettable heartwarming experience.