Tenth Sunday after Trinity

If you enjoy this, the entire AOC Sunday Report is RIGHT HERE!

Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Today’s sermon tied the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together.

Consider the words from the Collect, wherein we ask God to give us … be open to the prayers of thy humble servants; and, that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such things as shall please thee …

Once again, this Collect is kind of a follow-on to last week’s Collect.  First, we ask God to hear our prayers, this is funny in that He always listens intently to us when we pray and we very seldom listen to Him when He answers.  It is an odd paradox, He listens but we never seem to listen.  It seems as if at times we should pray that we should listen not Him, as He always listens! Nonetheless, we ask His help to ask for those things we need, not those things we want and are bad for us.  We need to be humble when we ask.  What does that word mean?  According to the dictionary, to be HUMBLE means to be:

·      Modest

·      Respectful

·      Lowly

Modest - unassuming in attitude and behavior

Respectful - feeling or showing respect and deference toward other people

Lowly - relatively low in rank and without pretensions

These are three characteristics that we do not possess in our natural, sinful state. We however can obtain these through asking the Holy Ghost to bring these attitudes into our hearts, souls and minds.  And not just asking, but we have to be willing to listen to what He says we should change within our lives. We cannot change what is our station in life, but we can change our attitude towards God.  He is God, we are not.  We are His creatures, imperfect with free will.  We must recognize that when we ask for His Help.  We badly need the guidance from the Holy Ghost so we can ask for what we need, instead of what we want.  NEED and WANT are two four letter words that are used too oft interchangeably that do not mean the same thing. People often use these four letter words erroneously, thinking they mean the same thing. They do not and cannot. Needs are vital for our spiritual health as well as physical health. Wants are nice things to have, but they are not vital for us to survive. When we think we “NEED” something, we have to ask if it fits the above definition “Is this vital for our ministry/life here on earth, or is it something just nice to have, but not a critical item?” We have to see if what we need is something we truly need, or just a want. Too many people do not perform this need analysis and as a result suffer for it physically and spiritually.

While our needs must be fulfilled, there is nothing wrong with wanting, just so long as you want things that are good for you. And as long as your want does not turn into coveting or wanting people’s stuff without being willing to work for it. We have to carefully monitor our wants and make sure that they are good for us and that we are wanting to work for whatever it is that we want.  Once again, we are asking God to help us to want the right things that will be good for us and help us develop in our Christian lives. Paul reminds us though each believer is different, throughout all the believing peoples of the Church the same God, the same Spirit, the same Christ works all in all and through all His work is done and accomplished. When we are setting off to do work for the church, we have to keep in mind that those believers we serve and help believe in the same God we do, and they are filled with the same spirit.

Paul reminds us we each have differing talents, but if we use them to the Glory of God, without concern for who gets the credit, all will be well. I can think of no finer example of this than the Marines serving on Peleliu with Eugene Sledge, in the 3^rd Batallion/5^th Marines.  I was reading his memoir, With the Old Breed, when I realized in my reading, none of the Marines he served with cared a bit who got a credit, all they cared about was helping their fellow Marines accomplish the objective. They didn’t do what they felt like, at least not the good ones. They did what was right without thought as to who would get the credit. Their main thoughts were to work as a team to defeat the Japanese. We must work in the same manner with our fellow Christians, using each of our talents to further His work and to defeat the forces of Satan. God has given us all each unique talents to be used to further His Mission. Together, our talents can help us as the Body of Christ serve and glorify Him on Earth. 

Do what you can, not what you feel like. Ignore what you feel like doing and do what God wants you to do. We will profit from doing what God wants more than if we did what we just felt like doing. This is hard for us to grasp, but it will help us in the long term if we do what He asks, instead of doing what we want. What we feel like doing often does not align with what God wants for us, which can result in negative consequences for us. However, if we do what He wants for us, there will be positive consequences. It is a simple message, yet one that can be hard to swallow sometimes, but it is a message that must be swallowed all the same. 

If you will but read the Bible, what God wants you to do will be clear.  If you do your best to do His Will all will be well with you.  Death is a pretty hollow threat if you do your duty. If you have done your best, that is at the end of the day, you have done your best to follow Him, then truly you have nothing to fear. The people of Jerusalem would not have been in the pickle they got in when 70AD came along, had they only done what God wanted.  But, it was too hard for them.  These were of course the descendants of the people who defied God in the wilderness for 40 years, they were a stubborn and stiff-necked people. They were blinded by their stubbornness to change. They could not see what God wanted for them or now for us.  In 70AD, what had been so hard seemed pretty easy compared to the fix they were in, but by then it was too late.  By that time they were left with only “There are none so poor as cannot purchase a noble death.”  But, for most of them by that time they had no will.  It left when they failed to follow God’s Will. 

It is an object lesson for us, to do what we can in the here and now and not worry about tomorrow. And also we shouldn’t complain if it is too hard for us, because being on God’s side, nothing is too hard for us. We should ignore these thoughts and turn our attentions to what God wants for us. We must learn from the past mistakes of our spiritual forebears and resolve not to repeat those same mistakes. If we are ignorant of our spiritual past, we are doomed to make those very same mistakes.

When Luke wrote of the sales in the temple, he had a point.  The point was not to preclude jumble sales at church.  He was not abhorring the sales, but the cheating in the name of God.   This Gospel does literally preclude cheating people at those jumble sales!  You must understand the temple hawkers were selling perfect defective “sacrificial lambs” which would be recycled over and over^[1].  In their very successful effort to make money they were defrauding the people and insulting God in His own House.  It should also be pointed out that a church should be a place of worship.  It may be a Prophet Center, but not a Profit Center^[2].  Similar sounding words, but a totally different meaning for the church.  If the building needs constant commercial enterprise, then perhaps the emphasis is on the wrong center. All of these churches that emphasize quantity over quality should be suspect. It does not matter the quantity, as long as you have a base of quality believers that serve the One Triune God. We need to be concerned more about the spreading of His Word, the constant truth, then focusing on how many people we can attract, and how the message can be changed to suit them. These are both problems with the modern churches today. A church should be funded for its needs by its members and its wants should come much later, if not in fact unheeded.  A church is about Him, not about IT. It should not be a self-licking ice cream cone, but a center to help the believers walk in Christ, not focusing on physical and material plant on earth, but on helping us on our own “Pilgrim’s Progress” towards heaven. If it focuses on anything but that, it is a stumbling block to believers.  We are not called to be a stumbling block, but to be guides, to be lanterns shining in the darkness, to be as a light cloud amidst the darkness of this world.

Do what you are supposed to do when you are supposed to do it.  That is duty.  It does not matter how you “feel” about black or white.  Black is black; White is white.  Do your duty. Work as hard as you can, do the best you can, trust in the Lord.  By the way, cheat no one.  If you follow that, you won’t need to be told, “Particularly in God’s House.”

Action counts.  For by their actions ye shall know them.  

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

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^[1] The concept of being truthful in the efforts we make to spread The Word is not a separate subject by any means, but would take more time to talk about than we have time for here.  Suffice it to say that we must take every care to spread The Truth and not what our audience, whoever that may be, would like to hear.  When we bring our “sacrifice” to the “temple” we need make certain it is in fact as perfect as we can make it.  This is so hard that one of the recurring themes of the Collects is asking for guidance to ask for the right things.

^[2] A term I first heard from Bishop Dennis Campbell in 2011.  It was a great thought then and a great thought now!

Ninth Sunday after Trinity

If you enjoyed this, you can read the entire
AOC Sunday Report RIGHT HERE!

Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Today’s sermon tied the Epistle and Gospel together talked, as is oft the case, of the need for action, not simply diction, the general content is in forewords above.

Consider the words from the Collect, wherein we ask God to give us … the spirit to think and do always such things as are right; that we, who cannot do any thing that is good without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will …

This is kind of a follow-on to last week’s Collect.  We are asking God to give us direction that we might know right from wrong and follow the right way.  If we listen to our hearts and minds, like the aviator, mariner or adventurer without a compass, we will soon be hopelessly lost.  With the compass God gives us, we can find the One True Way, much like the compass always points North.

The Collect acknowledges that without God’s intervention through the Holy Spirit in our lives we cannot do anything that is good or right. Indeed, our own very natures prevent us from doing what is right.  Our nature is inclined towards being away from God, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can reset our nature to be towards God. We just have to ask for His help and not just ask for it, but willingly receive it.  By receiving, I mean that we have to be willing and ready listeners, ready to listen to what He wants us to do, and then act upon that. We have to have His will be our will. We have to put aside what we want to do, and put what God wants us to do in the forefront. This is a very difficult matter, a concept we have always struggled with.

This is nothing new.  As Paul reminds us we have a common spiritual past, regardless of our actual lineage.  Spiritually, we are descended from the Jews of the Exodus.  Their God is our God; God directed their actions.  He was a Trinity then as He is today.  Their reality is our reality, whether we choose to understand or accept it. Our forefathers drank of “the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”  We are like them in that we stubbornly, due to our own nature, resits His will. We murmur and grumble, when in fact we should be praising Our Father Almighty. We are also like them, in that if we do not look up to Him who was lifted up on the cross, like Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, we will perish. However, if we will look up to Him who was crucified on the cross, and believe on Him and his name, we shall be saved. 

Those who have gone before provide examples, both good and bad. We should aspire to follow the good examples of those who have gone before and not the bad examples that they have left behind. In this letter Paul addresses the bad and suggests we should see what their ill behavior gained them before we set our course and not after.  We should not strive to emulate the murmurings of the people, though we may feel that way sometimes, as we can learn from their bad examples.  We must see their bad examples and do not emulate those; on the other side, we must see the good examples, and strive to emulate them.

Following after the Jews, we should strive to not incorporate those bad examples, but the good examples into our lives. And, lest we think ourselves ever so special, he reminds us we are subjected to no special temptations, only those “as is common to man.”  Every man on this planet is a sinner who desperately needs help, every bit as much as the next, albeit likely in differing ways.  In sin, all are equally lost to death, unless they accept the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Which is to say, common to everybody within the human race who is not Christ, which is all of us. This is another example of the adage, “Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.”  It is an old saw, but one as valid today as the first time it was used.  

That is a reason the Old Testament should be read and reviewed and compared to the New Testament, to see where we came from, how we got here and where we should go next. It works like a process flowchart, from the beginning from Adam, down through the various figures of the Old Testament, the flowchart ends at the arrival of Christ and the Holy Ghost, and in our redemption. Analyzing this flowchart, we can see our temptations and sins are nothing new, and sins are a waste of our spiritual life. We must practice continuous improvement, kaizen as the Japanese called it, and or total quality management of our spiritual life.

Just like total quality management requires each and every member of the organization work together to achieve quality and serve the needs of the customer, so too, do the Scriptures require all believers work together, to serve the needs of those we serve, namely other believers and the Church. We must continuously improve ourselves in our day to day lives, not just in the church, but in our businesses and personal lives. This is the message Paul is conveying to Corinthians, that we must see how our forefathers acted, emulate their good qualities and dispose of the wasteful, bad, sinful qualities.   We must continually improve upon ourselves throughout our lives. We must continually work on improving our bad qualities and making them into good qualities. Only God, the Holy Spirit, and Christ can really provide us the spiritual guidance we need to do this. We must trust that they will give us the correct guidance when needed. 

Speaking of lessons, when Saint Luke recounts the story of the prodigal son we oft think ourselves as that prodigal one returning to God so late in life.  Yet there is far more to be learned than the titular son.

Consider the two sons.  The older is a wonderful young man who strives to please his father in everything he does.  The younger son asks for his inheritance, now rather than later, and sets off to spend it wastefully in a far off land.  In dire straits, he decides to go home to his father and beg to be allowed to live as one of his servants.  He decides to tell his father, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son…”  Before he can get the words out of his mouth, his father welcomes him, gives him new clothing and calls the servants to prepare a fatted calf for a big party.  The elder son is very angry and hurt.  He asks his father what he did wrong; he followed his instructions every day to the best of his ability, worked hard, and yet his father had never even given a small party for him.  The father answered, saying, “Son, thou are ever with me, and all that I have is thine.”   “It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost and is found.”  

This story, like that of the workers in the vineyard has a number of meanings.  Like the father in the story, God wants us to be His faithful child, but rejoices when we return to Him.  Like the prodigal son, we should be grateful to live long enough to return to Him.  We should recognize when we have erred and strayed from our ways like lost sheep; as soon as we recognize that, we should immediately return to Our Lord in prayer, asking for His forgiveness.  Like the father in the story, our Lord will warmly welcome us back with open arms. 

The moral of the younger son’s story is that God is always waiting for us, and if we are not too late, we can always return to Him.  Today preferably rather than tomorrow! He will always accept us with opening arms, but we must make sure it is not too late. Don’t wait until you die! If you feel you have erred and strayed, repent now! Do not put off until tomorrow your repentance. If you are led by the Holy Spirit to repent, please do it today, you may not live to see tomorrow. 

Do not let the sun go down on your sins and wrath, you may not live to see another day! On the other hand, consider the oldest son, let us learn from his mistake and be joyful when our brothers and sisters come home to our family. Let us put aside the anger and jealousy and replace those hurtful emotions with the emotions of pure love and joy! Let us join in the celebration and not begrudge the fatted calf.  We should not be jealous or angry when our long lost brethren return to the flock of Christ! We should be merry and joyful they have returned to us! Do not let your pride become anger and cloud your emotions like it does so many of us. But, rather see a sinner coming back into His flock and rejoice in he is no longer headed towards The Pit! 

Action counts.  For by their actions ye shall know them.  

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

Eighth Sunday after Trinity

If you enjoyed this, you can read the entire
AOC Sunday Report RIGHT HERE!

Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Today’s sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and is partly  contained in the forewords above.

Consider the words from the Collect, wherein we ask God who … ordereth all things both in heaven and earth; … to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which are profitable for us …

We must understand in our hearts that God does indeed “ordereth all things” here as well as in heaven.  Once we understand that, then we can ask Him to keep us away from those things hurtful to us and incline our hearts towards those things that are good for us.  This is one of the many things for which we need the inspiration of the Holy Ghost in our hearts.  Without His Help, we cannot recognize the help we need.  We tend to think of ourselves as perfectable by our own work, without the need to depend on others (Him).  The problem is, it does not work.  And it cannot ever work this way. If it did work this way, then God would not have sent His Son Jesus to come down and die for our sins and account us as perfect. And yet, we cannot seem to figure this out on our own.  To try what clearly does not work over and over again, is the very definition of insanity. On the other hand, if we look to God for help, for guidance, for direction, for course correction, for strength, for structure, for the ability to persevere, there is nothing that must be done that cannot be done.

In other words, on our own we cannot do anything that works, but with God’s help, we can do things that work!  It is not because of us, that we can do things that work, but because God is acting within us with the help of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is key to following God here on Earth. He is our lifeline to salvation, giving us the resources that we need to be able to follow His Will. He can help us put aside our fears, worries, concerns and do what we need to do. It may not necessarily be what we want to do, but in the end, it is better than anything we could want to do. God asks only that we do our very best.  By the way, do not confuse saying you are doing your best with actually doing it. There is a difference between words and actions!

The difference lies in what our actions convey. Do our actions convey faith or disbelief? If we are true followers of Christ, then our actions will convey faith. If we are not of Christ, our actions will convey unbelief. I know what I want my actions to convey, do you? Our faith means nothing, if it is not evident in our actions. We would then not have the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ within us, who saves us. It is not our faith that saves us, but Him who rose and died for our sins. It is the faith of Jesus Christ that has saved us and not our own faith. Our own faith did not account us as perfect, His Faith, by dying on the cross for our sins did.  Let us not confuse our faith, with His Faith that saved us, by His Actions.

He acted for us and not only talked the talk as it were, but walked the walk as well. He cannot be truly within us unless we ask for Him to come in and help guide our actions. We cannot buy our way into heaven, nor any other way we can think of will get us into heaven, but the way that God provided for us, will get us into heaven, that of His Son Jesus Christ, who was sent to die for our sins that we would have eternal life, to all that believe upon His name. BELIEVE, is the key word. To truly BELIEVE, you must act in a Christly manner, believe that He died for our sins, and to live out the faith as preached by Him.  If you do not believe any one of the tenants of the Nicene Creed, then you cannot be considered a Christian, for all of the elements necessary to be a Christian are consolidated into the Creed. It summarizes the story of the Gospel into a Creed that we acknowledge and believe. It summarizes it into a creed that we Christians are called to follow, believe and spread through the world. We are not called to just mindlessly repeat this creed, but we are to truly think upon each point in the Creed, and think about what it means for us and our salvation, and act upon this Creed.

There are 66 books in the Bible, of those 27 are in the New Testament, of those Saint Paul wrote 13, almost half!  More than anyone.  Paul gives much of the guidance and direction we call The Word of God.  Yet, his message is very simple.  People claim to find it hard to grasp, which mostly means they don’t want to hear it.  If they truly did want to hear it, they would not offer up those excuses! Today, Paul tells us, much like last week, that if we are of this world, we die of this world. Pretty simple message, right? Yet if we will accept our adoption by God, we will be entitled to call Him Abba, or Daddy.  We have been emancipated from the bondage of sin and are now freemen under the promise of eternal life.

What a wonderful gift this is. We are no more beholden to sin, no more under the eternal debt of sin, but we have been freed from that terrible master Death, and now we have a absolutely perfect master in God. He truly is the most perfect master for us, better than we could be of ourselves. Which is why we are truly not worthy of being a master of another human and why slavery has never truly worked. We ourselves were in slave to sin, and in no condition to be a master of anyone. For that was why we were in the bondage of the sin prior to the coming of Christ. We humans, both Gentiles and Jews, could not overcome that most terrible and natural malady of sin. But God came up with the perfect way, the One Way, His Son Jesus Christ to die for us that we might gain a bridge between this earth and life eternal.

In order for us to truly be adopted, we have to be willing to follow Him and His Son our Lord Jesus Christ, here on earth, for better or for worse, in times good and in bad, and never give up, never give in and always focusing our minds on how we can best serve Him. To truly show we are adopted Sons and Daughters of God, we must be willing to act in a manner worthy of this adoption. We will fail at times, that is true, but the key is that we always return to Our Lord, ask for His forgiveness, and start again a new, acting in a manner worthy of being adopted Sons and Daughters of the Great High King, God the Father Almighty.

For, if we are His children, then we gain His Birthright and all resulting from that status. Again, this is simple, but following as His Children can be a fairly difficult task, if we try to do things without His guidance it will not go as well. Actually, without His Guidance, we cannot do anything that is great or worthy. But with His Guidance, we can do all things! While we may have some cause for suffering here on earth, the resultant glory will all be well worth it.  The problem with this is that while we are all willing to suffer (just not today) we are so often not willing to put off what we want to do now for what God wants us to do.  We justify doing what we want, while ignoring what God clearly told us He Wants.  We look for people who claim authority who will tell us what we want to hear. 

We need to realize if we put off what we need to do now, in the future it will make things for us here harder.  So if we do what we need to do today, we will have the satisfaction of doing what He wants for us today and not having put it off until tomorrow which will never come for us. Once again, it is what we want, not what He Wants. What He wants will ultimately result in our salvation, what we want will ultimately result in our eternal damnation.  I know which way I want to go, do you?

That leads right in to the point Jesus said in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew when He Tells us to take great care in who we choose to follow. There are many today who seem to say the right things, but do the other. We must focus on their actions and see how it matches their spoken claims.

There are far too many so called ministers out there saying what  at first glance appears to be the right thing, but in reality their actions do not show they believe. To paraphrase scripture, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. In the case of individuals like Creflo Dollar, we can see that his treasure is in mammon wealth of this world and His heart is not set on following God.  This duplicitous nature is not becoming of those who would be ministers of God.

Therefore, those men cannot be true ministers of God, but must be false prophets. Scripture has been given to provide an unchanging standard against which we should judge the words and actions of those who would lead us towards God.  Jesus tells us to listen to those who preach of the Gospel and discard the words of those whose teachings are not congruent with The Word.    To quote President Reagan, “Trust, but verify.”  Does what the person say match with The Word? 

We all have Bibles, most the Authorized Version.  Does what the person preach match what God has said?  Does their life live that talk? We do not want to follow people that produce evil, corrupted fruit, but good and plentiful and delicious fruit! A good tree will not bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot ever bear good fruit! So is it with our actions, if we truly do our best to follow Him, our actions will produce good fruit; if we don’t, we will produce bad fruit.

Actually, that brings us to another point, does the Bible you use match the real Word of God.  It is not the grammar or style that counts, but the facts, the points, the real message of Scripture.  The Authorized Version comes from the Received Text and is reliable.  Make certain the version you use loses nothing in the translation. The modern versions use corrupted manuscripts omitting a large number of verses that corrupt the message of the New Testament, and in the case of John 3:16 for example, dilute Jesus Christ’s status as the only begotten son of God. The newer Bibles also are copyrighted so “Man” owns it, and not the author of Scripture, God our Father. In this case, these newer Bibles are not Bibles at all, but doctrine books of men set on not following Scripture.

So once you let the Holy Ghost into your heart, then take the direction He Offers, read and understand Scripture, you will know what you are supposed to do.  Then, you need to actually act on that knowledge.

Action counts.  For by their actions ye shall know them. 

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

Seventh Sunday after Trinity

If you enjoy this, the entire AOC Sunday Report is RIGHT HERE!

Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Today’s sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and is partly contained in the forewords above. 

Consider the words from the Collect,  … author and giver of all good things; Graft in our hearts the love of thy Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same (that is to say keep us in goodness)…

To get anywhere, we must acknowledge in our hearts that all good is of and comes from God.  Once we acknowledge that, we are in a position to ask God to put in to our hearts love of Him and all that is His.  This will help us to appreciate and act in goodness.  Without His love our efforts will ultimately be of no avail. We cannot do anything without His help, and with it, it will be easier. There will be times where we fail, but if we turn back to Him,  then we shall succeed. I find personally when I turn to Him nowadays for help with stuff, that I do far better than if I do not.  When I pray for something that I truly need, I find that He answers. I just have to listen to what He says. That holds true not just for myself, but all of us who follow under Christ’s banner.

So, pretty clearly we need to be of God.  Thus, when Paul wrote to the people of Rome, he was writing to all of us; for there truly is nothing new in the world. There is truth to the saying of Solomon’s there is nothing new under the sun^[1]. For there is no new sin in the world that has not existed since the time of Adam. It may take different form over the eons, but all sins are still the same since the dawn of man^[2]. Up until the time of Christ, we were still bound in our chains to Satan. We could not pass into the kingdom of heaven, even the Law of Moses could not redeem us, because, on our own we cannot be redeemed. It was only with the coming of Christ, that we could be redeemed. 

As Paul says, we have been transformed from servants of sin to servants of the giver of life. God has paid the wages of our sin, through the death and resurrection of His Son. We are called to be worthy of this new life as His servants. We have to truly live our lives as being of God. Being of God, as the adopted sons and daughters of God is truly a marvelous thing. It gives us the ultimate family, of being part of the body of Christ, the Church. It gives us the ultimate support system, of God and of our fellow believers. Our fellow believers, who are fellow travelers on the path to paradise, can give us moral support as we traverse the narrow and steep path towards heaven.

Before we are of God, we are of this world.  Our life is here, our end is here.  Once we are of God, then we are merely sojourners here; our life is not really here and certainly does not end here. We are merely passing through this world as a portal to our new unending life with God.  The only way to be of God is through God, that is His Son, our Lord. I am the way, the truth, the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6) Jesus himself clearly says the only way to be of God is through Him. Nobody comes unto God but by Christ. What does that mean for those of other faiths? Nobody knows but Christ, what provision – if any – He has made for those who chose not to follow Him here on earth for whatever reason.  We do know He always means what He says and no one comes unto the Father (gets into heaven) except through Him.  That is clear, beyond any misconstruing.  He is the only way, so why not follow the proven way to God and salvation?

If we will follow God, we will live, not only forever in the next world, but better in this world, starting right now, not just after we our earthly time is gone.  We must put aside what we did and do what He would have us do.  Actions are the key to everything.  Talk is nice.  Action is what counts. We have to act upon our beliefs, which can be very hard sometimes but must be done. I struggle with this myself, but I find that returning to God helps with this, and He cleans the slate, so I can try again anew.  This is always a very comforting thought, that God will always accept you, if you repent and do your best not to make that same error again. This will be a continuous never ending cycle for us, who will endeavor to do our best to follow Him, make mistakes, then get back up and try our best again.  

The key word is doing our best and not just saying we are doing our best when we aren't. We know we are doing our best, when we have done all we can in a given situation, according our our abilities. There are days that we do less than others, but so long as we have done our very best in those situations, we can feel reassured that we have acted for Him. Let us put aside our excuses, which are feeble and weak and concentrate on acting for Him. 

Acting is the key element of the Christian faith, for without action, there is little no evidence of faith. You need faith, that is true, through the Holy Spirit, but you also need to back up that faith with actions. Your actions on this Earth, determine who you really have faith in, God or man. The only sure support source is God, because He will never let you down, He will always be faithful and true. We can always rely on him for guidance and strength in very stressful times.

He is the one who we should always look to for guidance when times get tough. In fact, we should expect, if we follow Him, that things will get difficult, especially when it gets nearer to His coming. For we will be persecuted for His Name’s sake.  By those who are doing what they think is right, when they are really doing what is wrong.  Acting for Him may not always be easy, but be rest assured that it is always the right thing to do in the end.

In the end, it may not be the quickest way, but the path of following Him is the best way. Rather than take the shortcuts Satan offers, that lead down the broad and wide path, let us take the harder, narrower path that He offers, that will lead us to Paradise. Many will choos the former path, for varying reasons, but in the end, it will not profit them. Our path may not profit us much on earth, in monetary wealth, but it will profit us in a process less gift, that of eternal life in heaven.

Saint Mark tells us of action. Jesus had been in the wilderness teaching a multitude, some four thousand in number.  In those pre-restaurant on every corner days, the people had been without food and were hungry.  Jesus was concerned and inventoried their supplies, seven loaves and a few small fishes.  He gave thanks to God, and commanded the food to be set out before the people.  When they had eaten their fill, the scraps gathered up from the seven loaves filled seven baskets. 

Many speculated over the years as to just how He did it.  The answer is simple; He did it.  He did not talk about feeding the multitude and then sit down to His own meal.  He acted and they were fed.  The clear message of the story is action, and the whys and hows behind all of it does not matter as much as the simple message that He did it. It is all too easy to get wrapped around in fine details, when it is the bigger picture that matters. The clear moral of this story is that He acted, not just talked, but he actually acted and fed the people. That is a model we should follow, not just talk but act as well.  Does this story recall the words from the Last Supper used in Holy Communion at the Consecration? “he took Bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat, this is my Body, which is given for you; Do this in remembrance of me.”  Those few words produced The Word, which has satisfied so many over millenniums.  It does not take a lot of words to satisfy us, but they have to be the right ones, which come from Our Lord.

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

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^[1] 9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

^[2] In some respects, this is a key to the Bible. Regardless of our own self-centered thoughts, we are the same people since Adam and will be until the end of time. Thus he who writes the Romans just as well writes to us. We would like to think we are better, but we are not. We are the same. But, on the other hand, that is convenient for what worked for them will work for us.