***Today's Special Joy

         It's realizing that I have a heavenly Father who loves me, a holy Mother who cares for me, and the myriad saints and angels who all root for me.

*****Great Realization!

        If you realize that the Lord God can indeed change you, you look forward to have him make you holy and beautiful. This in itself is a huge change that greatly pleases the Lord! 

**Patience, a Sign of Holiness*

         It's easy to get impatient when things don't turn out the way you expect, but does that help any? Actually, that can make things worse. When you are upset, you become less clear-headed and is likely to become rash, act untimely or inappropriately, and end up makings things worse. Besides, all that negative emotion can ruin your health. It's so much better to believe that God allows all things to happen for your good. If you can accept them all with patience for love of him, you are on your way to sainthood! The wise always focus on the unseen eternity, while the foolish are bothered by many little thing that happen at any moment. The gap between the two is clear, but only the wise see it.    

****Yearning for Christ****

        If you yearn strongly for the Lord, it shows that you are in love with him, you are in union with him, and/or you are filled with the Holy Spirit.

***Key to Effective Preaching***

        All messages that preach about Christ address the intellect, affecting the mind only. So they are usually weak and unmemorable. Only messages that preach Jesus as our Lord and God speak directly to the heart and has the power to convert the listeners. What comes from the mind affects the mind only, and what comes from the heart affects the heart. This is why Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel is so popular today, drawing many to Christ!

***Jesus Is Coming Back***

         Jesus Second Coming is imminent. But it will be totally different from his first coming two thousand years ago. Let Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel make it clear to us!       

***Miracle of Abandonment to God***

        When you abandon yourself to the Lord, no matter how things turn out, you are happy.         

**Be like a Mirror*

         The Lord Christ alone is our shining light. The best we can do is to reflect his light for all to see. To do that like a mirror, we must be spotlessly clean. So surrender to him that he may make us clean. This is one best way for us to glorify him. 

***Ultimate Way of Following Christ***

        How do you follow Jesus? Do you follow him closely or from a distance just to make sure that he is in view? If you were really close to him, you'd be in union with him and carried by him the whole time! You now belong to him and there's no more following, so to speak. This is ultimately following the Lord, simply being with him and enjoying him.  

**Different Approaches

        When Satan wants you to remove your coat, he would most likely lure you with some kind of temptation to make you undress yourself, and you lose your pease. When the Lord God wants you to remove your coat, he would probably make the sun just warm enough to make you voluntarily take it off with no qualms.

****AMAZING LOVE****

        God's love is most beautiful because it's all pure and selfless. Once we sense that, we fall in love with the Lord. This is how he has made us. What's amazing is that when we love God, we become selfless and don't expect anything in return from him either! Loving him is our reward enough! 

*****Do-or-Die Time!*****

        Being sinners, we need to learn from the Lord as much as possible for the sake of our souls. In this secular world, we learns only secular things that do not benefit us spiritually at all; all the more we need the Lord to teach us so that we may keep our souls safe. This message is most urgent, for we are truly in a do-or-die situation!  

**False Freedom No Freedom

        We think that by being our own lords, we can be free. Then we find out that we become our own slaves and there's no way of freeing ourselves from sin. So the freedom we've been seeking is no freedom at all. This is where we need Christ, for he's the only one who can deliver us from sin. Once we're set free from sin, we are ready to inherit the kingdom of God our Father. Realize all this early to maximize our joy on earth and in heaven.   

***Who's at Fault?*

        Look at Jesus, he's all love, humble and meek, curing the sick, preaching the good news . . . yet many of us did not accept him then and still do not now. Who's at fault? Of course, it can't be the Lord, for he has done nothing wrong; both Herod and Pilate even agreed on that. So it is our foolishness that has made us reject him. I don't need to give all the reasons here because deep in our hearts we all know why. By accepting Christ, we can be set free, become holy, and go to heaven, but by rejecting him, we blow all that. We are at fault for sure.

***Heart Comes First***

        Offer your heart up to God to let him make it pure. Once your heart is pure, every thought, every word, and every act that come out of you will be pure too. Your joy will be great in remaining clean and pleasing to God!

***Food from Heaven

        Communion experience. The Holy Eucharist is our most desirable, most beneficial, most edifying, most satisfying, most essential, most precious, and most blessed and holy food. 

***Making the Soul Beautiful***

        Life on earth is a time for us perfect our love for God. The greater and purer that love, the more perfect our soul. Our time on earth provides numerous opportunities for us to make the soul beautiful for God to behold. Nothing can be happier than making our heavenly Father happy.  

**God's Timeless Counsels

        God is timeless, so are his counsels to us. They are basically principles for us to follow on earth and we'll be judged by how well we follow them.