**The One Who Gives Peace

        No matter how much turmoil you experience within, you can have your peace restored when you turn to Christ and surrender yourself to him. 

**Practical Conclusion*

        Whether you follow the Lord or not, he knows all about you. Hiding or escaping from him is impossible. So you might as well get to know him to receive his love, protection, and all the other benefits from him. Otherwise, you just end up alone, not being loved by anyone for all eternity!

**Narrow Horizons

         If you do not believe that nothing is impossible with God, you limit not God, only yourself!

*****Our No. 1 Calling (Often Forgotten)***

         In today's Gospel reading from John 17, Jesus asked the Father to keep all those he had given him from the Evil One. This reminds me that the No. 1 calling for all of us in life is to remain holy in this evil world. Once we accept this calling, any specific calling as to what each of us should do will become clear. All in all, to wish to remain holy shows that we truly love God and are obedient to him. Furthermore, it reveals that we are now free.

***God Completes Our Existence*

        We don't see God, but he sees us. We may not know him, yet he knows all about us. Under such circumstances, don't you think that we'd better get to know him? I now know the Lord intimately and can say that my life is complete, for knowing him has absolutely secured our eternity.

***Go to Christ First Always*

        See your spiritual journey as a process of letting Christ become more and more your only Lord and master. I have been advocating "go to the Lord directly," "focus upon the Lord alone," "be completely open to him" . . . so I am reiterating things here. Think about how you can serve and love God is good, but great progress can only come from shifting your attention to the Lord to let him inspire you directly! Basically, know God and you'll know what to do.

**Practical Advice

        Jesus said to Thomas in John 14:6, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." So we might as well let Christ transform us to get us ready now for our return to the Father.

***Our Great Ignorance***

        If you think that your God is way up somewhere in heaven and you are way down here on earth in a totally separate world, then you've got the wrong God. The true God we have is most personal whom we can know most intimately through Jesus the Son, for the Father and the Son are alike. In fact, we can achieve spiritual union with him through receiving Christ in the Holy Eucharist. If we open ourselves up to God completely, he is all ours! It's ironic that so many of us choose to run away from him and end up lost forever. Basically, we treat ourselves who are dearest and most precious to God the Father as worthless junk. All the more we need to turn to the Lord and ask him to take away our pride and ego!

**Union Through Belonging**

        In today's Gospel reading from John17, Jesus prayed to the Father, saying "I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, . . . I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine." How good it is that God the Father completely owns us whom he has chosen and who now completely belong to him! This is union all right. 

*****A Breakthrough Secret!*****

        We ponder how we can love God more, we meditate upon God's beauty, we reflect upon our own feelings about the Lord, we try to understand our innermost feelings . . . all these things I can do on my own, but I can do so much better if I remain completely open to the Lord. For then I see all things clearly with his light shining on them. This is absolutely the key to knowing the Lord and understanding all truths! So, be wide open to God at all times to be enlightened.

***Not as Able as We Think

        When we are young and physically fit, we tend to believe that we can do anything in this world. So we're just not concerned about our spiritual wellbeing. Then finally we grow old enough to see the end of life approaching and realize that we cannot do many things anymore. Having been ingrained in the way of the world for so long, we find turning to God not always easy. Some may not fully wake up to reality until their last moments on earth. This message is to remind all that we are finite beings on our way returning to our infinite God to be judged by him. So the earlier we realize this to get ready, the better for us. 

***Taking Another Look at Jesus***

        Here's why we should believe that Jesus is our Lord, our God, and our Savior. The fact that he rose from the dead on the third day is undeniable. He taught and spoke to us with authority as God and performed numerous miracles. Today we are still seeing such wonders happening among us, not to mention the vast number of people whose lives have been transformed by his love. As sinners, we are grateful that he can cleanse us from sin and make us heaven bound. He is unique, for no one else loves us to death and challenges us to the core at the same time. Of course, many of us still have trouble believing in him. So let's try looking at the whole thing rationally. Suppose that the chance Jesus is true is just 50-50. If you don't believe in him and he turns out to be true, you are doomed. On the other hand, if you believe in him and he turns out to be false, you are not in any worse shape. So if you have any sense at all, you would choose to believe in him, as the risk of losing your soul forever is unthinkable! You have to be out of your mind not to believe in him, especially if you cannot prove beyond any doubt that he is all false.  

**Following Christ Better Aim

         Trying to be a good Christian is fine, but to be more precise and effective, follow his will at all times. 

**Eternal Gratitude**

         Communion time thought: Who am I that the Lord should favor so much as to die in my place to save me from eternal death? 

**Most Beautiful Gratifying Emotion:

love and yearning for the LORD.

***Compelling Reason We Need Christ**

            He can perfect us and grant us eternal life.

**The Ball Is in Our Court**

        Jesus is fully ready to save us. The key question for us: Are we ready to let him do that? 

**To Be Dumb by Choice*

        The Lord God wishes that we surrender ourselves to him so that we may have life eternal, but our prideful nature comes up with all kinds of reasons to say no to that. How dumb can you get?