Pick up your mat John 5:1-41

Today's readings give us good indication of how we should act and what the signs will be that we are helping to bring to fruition God's plan.  We should bring the water flowing from the temple to the world.  If we do the world will be like a watered garden.  If we truly lived God's plan for us there would be no want or selfishness in the world.

Jesus said that came to fulfill and not abolish the law so the literal interpretation the Pharisees have of the law must be incorrect.  How could he law of a loving God allow a man to stay ill one more day simply because it was the sabbath?  We should be careful using the law of God to be selfish or to feel better about ignoring the needs of those around us.  Would Jesus really want us to make doing drug free a condition of giving someone the food they need?  I don't think so.  His law is compassion itself.

Leaving it to God John 4:43-56

When reading today's Gospel I thought how I would have probably continued to beg the Lord to come with me, thinking He had to touch the child to make him well.  I would have been disappointed that I had failed.  How often does God have a plan to work something in our lives but we don't believe because we had a different idea about how it should work?

I wonder how many times I recited God's plan for m because I wanted Him to work in a different way.  When I think about it, it's those times when I haven't been expecting Him to work and there didn't resist Him, that God has made the biggest changes in my life and in my family.  It's been those times when I followed Him not knowing where he would lead me that I followed Him most closely.

We need to allow God to lead us wherever he wants to.  Something may look scary or bad to us but if we believe we will take that leap of faith and follow where He leads.    I will do my best to remember this passage.

Not as Man sees does God see

We look at the superficial appearance.  We see the clothes, the house, the car, the family, God sees the heart.  We  can never say by looking at someone on the street if they are a sinner or not.  Just because the person is poor or is homeless we want to say that they must have done something wrong.  They made poor decisions or are addicted to something.  This may all very well be true but God still loves them and they may be a better person than you.

I met a man on a street retreat in Austin who had been a pastor of a church in Houston, he was offered a mega church but God spoke to him and he sold all he had and walked or hitched rides to Austin.  He gathers people on the street around him and ministered to them.  They formed a camp for people trying to get off drugs or with mental health issues.  Years before I met another man who did a similar thing but he gathers the mentally ill and disabled.

You don't know when you look at the person next to you if they are someone you can teach about God or someone who can teach you.  If you approach them with an open heart and mind, God will show you.

The Greatest of Commandments Mark 12:28-34

To love God with all that we are, what does that mean?  How do we love God?  Does simply knowing his words do it, or do they have to become a part of us so that they truly guide all we do?  What does it mean to love our neighbors as ourselves?  Can we exclude anyone?

I believe we love God by loving all He has made and trying at least to know His word so that it is a part of us.  His word should be our guide for our lives and not a stick we beat others with.  If a part of scripture troubles us we should pray on it.  Either we don't understand it or it convicts us.  If we love all God has made we should try not to destroy it.  It is a reflection of him.

We have to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Do we have a home, food, health?  Then so should they. We can not love them and treat them differently then we do ourselves.  They are God's creation and so reflect his image.  To reject them is to reject God.

Listen to my Voice

God says this over and over in the Bible and He has to because we have stubborn hearts and stiff necks.  Listening to God means being quiet ourselves and open and attentive to His voice.  I think of how often what we want is to know ourselves what to do.  We don't want to ask anyone let alone God.  I think we often times study the Bible so we will know the answers and not have to ask.

Reading the word of God should be a way of listening to Him.  We can't just read the parts we want, that was where Luther was wrong, or we aren't fully listening to all God has to say.  We also have to be alive and open to God speaking to us through other people.  He will talk to us through our Pastors but he will also speak to us through our family and friends and even the homeless man on the corner.

Prayer, quiet meditative prayer, where we open our hearts to God and then listen with our hearts for an answer is critical to listening for the voice of God.  Sometimes he will actually talk to you and you will hear Him but most of the time it is more subtle.  Look for it everywhere and in everyone.

The Law of the Prophets Exodus 17:1-7

Reading this passage the first thing that came to my mind was this was just and introduction to the 10 commandments but in reality it is so much more.  The Lord tells us if we really are His followers, if we are truly just, others would admire us and want to join us.

If we really followed the commandments of God and didn't try to live only the letter of the law and then only the barest minimum, we wouldn't need to evangelize.  If we didn't listen to clever people who convince us that God didn't really mean what He said when He said do not kill.  We convince ourselves that racism isn't really stealing or that because we really want to our adultery was okay.  We  even tell ourselves that because we are "saved" we no longer have to worry about sin.

In Matt 5 we read whoever breaks these commandments or teaches other to do so will be called least in heaven

Lord, how often must I forgive my brother? Matt 18:21-35

I imagine that when St. Peter asked our Lord if he had to forgive his brother seven times that he thought he was being generous.  How often do we ask the same question of our Lord?  How often do we ask that question after we ourselves have gossiped or told a lie for the thousandth time?

Forgive, or you won't be forgiven.  Jesus says this over and over.  When we pray the Our Father we tell God, forgive me only as I forgive others.  Do I only forgive those whom it benefits me to forgive, someone I need something from?  Do I forgive only those whom I feel really ask for my forgiveness?  Do I assume that because I am "saved" I no longer need to forgive?  At times I can say yes to all these things.

One of the people I find hardest to forgive is myself.  Certain mistakes I hold against myself and I have to ask the Lord to help me forgive myself just as I need His help to forgive others.  Holding on to grudges doesn't do you any good.  Forgiveness frees you up to love, it gives you space in your heart.  You don't have to keep letting people hurt you but until you forgive them, can you ever actually be free of them?