The Fourth Sunday after Easter

If you enjoy this, you can download 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.  

We are in the Easter Season which consists of Easter and the following four Sundays, until we get to Rogation Sunday.  This is a time we should work on centering our lives on the central figure in our religion, Jesus Christ.  

Consider these words from the Collect:

… who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men; Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found…

The very first phrase is critical to understanding our relationship with the world.  We want to follow our own hearts and they will lead us down the path to Donkey Island and eventually the pit.  This explains the “unruly wills and affections of sinful men.”   Our natural wills and affections are towards sinful things and not that of God. They are not naturally peaceful and loving wills and affections but that of violence and evil doing. It has been that way ever since Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden. God’s commandments to us are to re-shape our affections from things of mammon, to things of eternity. This is what the collect is talking about when it says “who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men”.  Only God can help us to re-shape those sinful wills and affections. It requires tweaking our perspective on what is best for us to match with what God knows is the best for us. He knows us far better than we do, and knows what is actually best for us. We have one hope; that we will listen to the instruction God freely offers us. If we will just do what He asks we will find true joy. 

We have to internalize His commands into our hearts through listening and then through repetition, action.  This is the only way we can follow His Commandments and show the World we follow Him. It is not enough to hear the Word only, we need to live the Word. Showing others that we are dedicated to following the Lord, and not just saying that we are following the Lord is how we can truly follow Him.  For all of the above to happen we have to let God into our hearts, souls, minds and bodies and let His Directions carry us through life. We have to allow room in our soul and hearts for the Holy Spirit to operate and give us that direction. We have to overcome our resistance to letting Him in, so that we can let Him in.  Because we cannot change ourselves; we need God’s help, also the Holy Spirit’s help, in changing ourselves. We have to do a hard boot to use computer speak and restart our lives in a new direction, 180 degrees opposite from our previous, more sinful lives.

Our life will be better when we follow His directions and if we will allow God to rule us and desire His help, we will be able to attain the state of happiness we will then deserve. He knows what is right and what is wrong for us. He does not want us to lead so called puritanical lives with no fun allowed whatsoever, but we must have fun the right way and not the wrong way. The right way can lead to a lifetime of happiness, whereas the wrong way leads to a life time of misery. Many people think that God forbids things for us, because He does not want us to have fun. Nothing can be further from the truth. He forbids things harmful for our spiritual well being, and allows us to have clean spiritual, joyous things in our life to develop our spiritual well being. Those people confuse the things that are harmful for our spiritual well being with fun and think that the things that are actually helpful for our spiritual well being are not fun. When it is completely not the case. The Holy Spirit will help us to truly see what is harmful for us and what is not harmful for us.

We need God’s help (this is one of the places the Holy Ghost comes in) to be able to want for ourselves that which He Wants for us.  If we can desire what He Wants, our ability to follow His Instructions will be much enhanced. And not only will they be much enhanced, but the more we follow His Instructions, the easier it will be for us to continue on that straight and narrow path towards heaven.

We are God’s creatures, first among all His Creation with all the privileges (which we like) and all the responsibility (which we are not so keen on) which come with that status.  All good comes from God, who is always with us; always the same; a true bearing in world in a constant state of flux. While the world may change, the Word will never change, no matter what happens in the world today. His Word is refreshing constant, in this world where things are changing every few years it seems, but His Word will never change. Its meaning never changes, as God never changes. As God is truth, which by its nature cannot change, so should we never change in our beliefs towards Him. It is refreshing to have Him in our lives as a constant we can always cling to when we get in trouble. Whenever it is a simple problem, such as a computer program malfunctioning, or a complex problem, we can turn to Him in our day of trial and find ourselves comforted.  We need to listen to not only Him, but those around us, think before we speak, think more before we act in haste.  We must put ourselves to good and separate ourselves from evil and superfluity of naughtiness so we can hear His Word, which will save our souls.

So, how can we hear?

When Jesus got ready to leave this world for His, He told the disciples that He would send them the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, to keep them in Him and to help them understand what they had so far been unable to truly grasp.  Unless we allow the Holy Ghost to enter into our hearts, we will never understand that which is from God.  This is an important concept with messages that are not from God being bombarded across the world through principalities and powers of this world. Only the Holy Ghost can help us remain grounded within the truth. We need the Holy Ghost to enter into us that we might be able to hear the Word of God, and more important than just hearing the Word, we need the Holy Ghost to be able to act upon the Word. We must allow the Holy Ghost to enter in to our hearts and souls so we can understand what God has for us.  It is that simple.  Open your heart, pray for God to send Him into that open heart. 

For with the Holy Ghost’s help, you can hear, understand and act on The Word.

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

Third Sunday after Easter

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.  

We are in the Easter Season which consists of Easter and the following four Sundays, until we get to Rogation Sunday.  This is a time we should work on centering our lives on the central figure in our religion, Jesus Christ.  

Consider these words from the Collect:

… who showest to them that are in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness; Grant unto all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s Religion, that they may avoid those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same…

God is a Triune God; Father, Son, Holy Ghost.  The Holy Ghost’s job is to open our souls, hearts and minds to God’s Will.  It is to help us see where we are in error and how to fix those errors.  Thus, to open our “ears” to His Voice so we can listen and make our improvements based on His Words..   As is oft the case, the Collect really asks us to let the Holy Ghost in so He can change us.    Consider this quote from Jack Lewis out of Mere Christianity:

“When He said, ‘Be perfect,’He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder—in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

It does not matter if it is hard for us to listen to the Holy Ghost, we must do it.  If we will listen to Him, God will always provide the light to show us where “We have erred, and strayed from His ways like lost sheep. Wherewe have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. Wherewe have offended against His holy laws. Where we have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done[1]…”   He will shine His Light onto the dark areas in our heart and souls so we can focus on eliminating that darkness from within us. He does this so that we can turn to the path which brings us to His World.  For without that guiding light, we will be forever lost on the path to darkness.

Then we can shine that Light for others to see, to lead them to that Light, that they might pick up their torches and bring His Light into the darkness of the world, be it the Western Civilized Word or the Eastern World. First, we have to let His Light into our hearts before we can shine it to others that they may see the works of His Light. We cannot lead others to a Light we do not have within us. So, we must first make sure we have the Light of the Holy Ghost within us before we can think of leadings others to that Light.

We can start in our own little corner of the world and work our way outward. We are always striving to work towards total transformation of our area to the light. However, we will always find opposition from evil. If evil is thwarting our efforts then we all must put in 110% to stop evil and combat it across the world wherever it is. We must never, never, never, ever give up on this fight.  

We must fight evil wherever and whenever we run across it. Evil anywhere is Evil everywhere to paraphrase one of my favorite books, Lord of the Rings. We must not let the little and big evils in this life get us down or defeat us. We must rely on the guiding power of the Holy Ghost and God’s unlimited grace to save the day. His Grace can help you out of any horrific situation; only if you ask for and accept His help, which is a universal theme in our sermons here, because it is a truth and one that Jesus preached, that is that we have to accept Him into our hearts, if we are to become truly Christians. 

A couple years ago, I met a Navy SEAL in Guam, who gave an excellent sermon to the point we must be on the offense in the battle against Satan, never defense. The SEAL noted Paul did not describe any sort of back armor whatsoever, showing us Christianity was an offense based, not defense based religion.  We must never our back towards the enemy, but rather face forward and attack. The best defense is a good offense as in every case. We must never cease our fight against Satan, for he is powerful here on earth, tricking many. We are often outnumbered in the fight.  Numbers matter not.  We must always fight with all we have every time.  We must carry on; we must storm the beaches of Hell itself and keep on persevering in good times and in bad.

Peter tells us our actions need to be consistent with the principles of Scripture and of Jesus’ message. In short, we need to be good citizens, be good neighbors, take particular care of our Christian family. In short, do what Christ would do, as far as it is in us. We need to cling to the good and reject the evil thoughts and actions of our old sinful selves.  Let us do our best to think, in hard and trying times, what would Jesus do in our situation, and then act in a manner most like Him. In order to make the world a better place, we first have to start with our selves then work out word, applying the principles of Christ to our lives. God does not ask us to be perfect; He does ask us to do our best to try to be perfect, to follow Jesus’ lead to the extent we have it in us.  Each of us is different, some are in truth less bad than others.  God holds us each to the same standard, that is to do our best.  Not to be better than any other particular person, but to do our best to follow His Instructions.  Being better than someone else is of no account, what is of account is following His Instructions to the best of YOUR ability.  

Don’t think of trying to be better than your neighbor, think of being better than you are. We are not competing against anyone. We are just striving to be better than we were yesterday. If we do this, then we will improve day by day, year by year.

In the Gospel according to Saint John, Jesus tells of His impending bodily death and resurrection.    He reminds us if we have eternal life, sorrow, even the sorrow of death is transient, for He has conquered death. It is a very minor thing in the long term view the sorrow of a temporary parting of a loved one. For that is all that is, if we put our trust and hope in God and do our very best to follow Him.  have to keep this in mind throughout our travel along the straight and narrow upward path. His One Sacrifice, made One Time, for All Mankind, for All Time is that joy that no man can take from us.  But, if we want to share in that eternal life, we need to see the error of our ways in the Light of His Light and take actions to follow Him.

Often it seems much easier to take the path of least resistance, to quit our work at the first sign of effort, to goof off when “no one” is looking.  But in the end, the right thing to do is always the easiest, the most profitable. The one that will result in happiness. It might seem hard, but it will not be as hard as doing the “easy” thing.

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

It is by our actions we are known.

As we go off on our business, please recall this quote from GK Chesterton:

Christianity has not been tried and found wanting;  it has been found difficult and not tried.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

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[1]General Confession – BCP Page 6

Second Sunday after Easter

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

Sermon - Rev Jack Arnold

Church of the Faithful Centurion

Descanso, California

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

We are in the Easter Season which consists of Easter and the following four Sundays, until we get to Rogation Sunday.  This is a time we should work on centering our lives on the central figure in our religion, Jesus Christ.  

Consider these words from the Collect:

… who hast given thine only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin, and also an ensample of godly life; Give us grace that we may always most thankfully receive that his inestimable benefit, and also daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life …

To understand the importance of Jesus’ sacrifice, it is critical to understand He is the only begotten Son(John 3:16) of God.  He is also referred to in places as The Word, the means by which God is given to the world.  But, more than that, 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.   (John 1:1-3)  Though the corrupted versions of the Bible (NIV, NKJV, RSV, etc) have attempted to erase His Divine Status and the role He plays in our salvation, that does not change the reality of Who He is. He is in simplest terms, the great I AM.  He was the one who brought light into this World. He has been there since before the beginning of time, before the beginning of what we know as our Universe. He created this world, it is by rights His; not the rightful belonging of the Prince of this World.  It was not Satan’s to give away, which Jesus knew when Satan failed miserably to tempt Jesus with his false promises in the wilderness.  He whom is begotten of the Father is who was sent to give His earthly life that we might be accounted as perfect at our own final accounting.  We ourselves, so oft serve only as bad examples, need the One who is the ultimate perfect example. Jesus has provided that perfect live for us to do our best to follow in our day to day lives.  He came to provide a new and perfect new covenant that is far superior to the old covenant. The way He acted and conducted Himself on this Earth was left as an example for all of us Christians to follow. He is the ultimate role model for us, who we should strive to be more and more like every day. The Collect makes this point very clear, we need the Holy Ghost in our hearts to more closely follow that perfect example in our daily actions.

This brings us to Peter’s point in the Epistle, Christ serves as a perfect example for the conduct of our lives.  There again the Epistle and the Collect tie together amazingly well. He conducted His ministry as examples for us to follow in our times of trial and tribulation, that we might see His light in our darkest moments.  If we are wrong and suffer for it, there is little honor; for we were wrong.  But, if we do right, that is follow God’s Will, and suffer for it, there is in fact glory, laud and honor there.  Jesus went to His death on the Cross for our failures that we might be accounted as perfect.  He who is, was and always will be perfect suffered great pain that we might live life eternal.  If He did that for us, should we not follow that example and follow His Direction, counting the cost only after the work is done? He himself had to go through suffering that the miracle of His Resurrection would occur; if we have to suffer, we can be at least rest assured that He suffered too and He underwent far more pain and misery than we ever will in our lifetime.

We are after all much like sheep, following the lead of those around us, somewhat like lemmings, it seems.  We have great need of a shepherd to lead us back from the edge of The Pit and to life, back to those verdant pastures and still waters. This Shepherd never will fail to lead us back to the pastures, we just have to pick up the guidance from the Holy Ghost and follow the path that He has set for us. 

As Peter referred to Jesus as a shepherd, so does John.  There is a reason for this constant reference to Jesus as the Good Shepherd; He is.  He leads us to green pastures and to beside the still waters. He restores and comforts our souls and drives the enemy from out of our souls and minds, if we let Him. This is a universal theme throughout the various Epistles of Paul, Peter and James. In order for us to have spiritual growth, we need to let Him into our hearts. He will lead us towards the path to Heaven, we just have to make the conscious decision to follow His Directions and etch them into our hearts.

In order to follow His Directions, we have to let go of our pride, vanity and arrogance and accept His Guidance and teachings of humbleness and humility into our hearts. We have to realize that We cannot do this alone. And also that we cannot save ourselves and that we need God’s influence in our lives.. And the best way to let Him in is to accept His Teachings and act upon them. Continually reading the Scriptures and not only reading, but learning and digesting is the best way to grow as a Christian. To digest means to absorb.  The best way to absorb these teachings is not only to read the Scriptures but to put the concepts into practice every day. 

Acting is the key word here, not just talking about it, but acting. It isn’t good enough just to read the Scriptures and go on our merry way and act like we did before we read the Scriptures. We have to apply the key principles of the scriptures here in our lives and shine the light of Christ to those around us.

The Gospel notes the difference of ownership. Our true owner will, and I might add, has, given His Life so we might be protected from the ravening wolves of this world, the Prince of this World.  We are cautioned to 8Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:(1 Peter 5:8)  But, sobriety only gets you so far; sheep do poorly against wolves and lions.  We need one who is experienced in protecting our souls against the spiritual wolves and lions of this world. Jesus is that experienced protector we need.  Make no mistake, we need the help of that Good Shepherd.  That Good Shepherd calls to each of us, we need the Holy Ghost in our hearts to hear the call.  Regardless of what you have been told by those of this world, there is only One God, One Lord, One Savior.  Thus, there is only One Flock; there are many ways to follow Scripture, but they must all have the same general plan.  That is the reason for the creeds, the reason we tell all to compare what is preached against what is in Scripture.  We need to daily work towards doing a better job of following God’s Will.

We need help, He provides it, we need to accept it.

The key is action, in this case our action. We need to actually accept the offered help; like the life ring thrown to a drowning person, we must grab God’s proffered help, else we profit nothing.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

First Sunday after Easter

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

Sermon - Rev Jack Arnold

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. 

We are in the Easter Season which consists of Easter and the following four Sundays, until we get to Rogation Sunday.  This is the time to be working on centering our lives on the central figure in our religion, Jesus Christ.  

Consider these words from the Collect:

… thine only Son to die for our sins, and to rise again for our justification; Grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may always serve thee in pureness of living and truth …

God sent Jesus, His ONLY Son, to be The Christ, The Messiah, The Savior, The Lamb to be sacrificed for our sin.  He gave His earthly Life, He went down into Hell, that we might be justified before God at our final accounting.  However His Sacrifice does not mean that we might be made perfect. Instead of that, His Sacrifice ensures that we will be accounted perfect at our judgment day Just because we are going to be accounted as perfect does not mean we are.  Thus, we are in need of God’s help to put away the infection, or leaven, of evil in our hearts so we can serve the Living God here.  We must be unleavened bread or unsinful. Without the help of God and the Holy Ghost, we cannot remove the hate and evil from our hearts.  We need Him to enter into our hearts so we know the right steps to move forward and act in accordance with His Will. 

In his general Epistle, Saint John makes it clear the entity we refer to as God is a Triune Being, that is Three in One; Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  What he does not make clear is the relationship between the Three.  But, that is not surprising, no place else is it really clear either.  The reason is that no earthly human is aware of the intricate details of the Triune relationship and that I must suppose those are not need to know details for us. Just knowing that God is a Triune Being is enough for us to understand and believe on. God is comprised of three separate entities who are of one substance and form a single entity, each has its function.  Jesus Christ is our key to life and the Holy Ghost is our key to Jesus Christ.  Christ, who was there at the beginning, will be there at our end; the Holy Ghost who breathed life into this world is our key to finding Christ in our hearts.  God has made it so.

The Holy Ghost is not often talked about in the church, yet He is the key to understanding.  God sent us the Holy Ghost that we might have:

·     Comfort

·     Understanding

·     Patience

·     Insight

·     Perseverance

·     Courage

·     Strength

·     Sympathy

When John relates the story of Jesus coming in to the Upper Room, note three things:

1.    He came into a closed room in bodily form;

2.    Then gave them His Peace;

3.    He breathed the Holy Ghost upon them.

An interesting point is made when John talks about the closed room.  When we leave the Shadowlands, we will gain an optimized body with shape and form, but as Jesus demonstrated things are different in the Real World. We can look at the closed room as a metaphor of sorts for Earth. Earth is a closed room, in that there is no way out, there is no door except through death’s door. When we die, as followers of Christ, we will appear in heaven, out of this closed room. Just like Jesus appeared in this closed room, we will appear in Heaven. And when we appear in heaven, things will be different than here on Earth and for the better.  We will no longer be halt, blind and maimed, we will live as God has meant for us.  

Jesus gave them His Peace. The Peace He talks about is quite different from the peace that the world talks about. The world does not have any idea of what the real peace that Jesus talks about is. Their concept of peace is so far short of God’s version. As they do not have the Holy Spirit within them to enlighten them, they will never know what true peace is. Jesus brings us, like those disciples, the peace of mind and soul that comes with giving all our worry, sadness and terror to Him. This is what true peace is. He leaves in His Wake not confusion, but order and wellbeing.  With Him in our hearts we cannot fail at anything that needs be done.  His Peace is the calmness of mind and soul we need to get through the difficult situations in life. This is not a concept to be thought about lightly.  It is certainly not the hand shaking service interrupting greeting of some churches. They say ‘peace’ when they mean ‘hi.’ These churches have lost the true meaning of Peace.

The Peace Jesus talks about is what we are looking for and have been looking for since we came into this world, for it is our passport out. It is the true peace we get when we know He is carrying our worries on His back and we can let go of our concerns and know that He is looking out for us and will give us the guidance we need to deal with our concerns. We just need to listen to Him and then act upon it.

That brings us to the Holy Ghost.  He is the Breath of Life, not just physical, whereas to die is to “give up the Ghost.”  He is our spiritual life, for without Him in our souls, hearts and minds we cannot even see the narrow road to the summit, let alone navigate it.  Having Him is like having night vision googles to operate at nighttime. Without His spiritual vision, we see only that well lit, broad even way that gently curves downward and gets smoother and smoother as it nears the Pit.   The Holy Ghost is the key to knowing our Lord!

Paul continually tells us we must be reborn as a new person in God.  We must put on the New Man and put the Old Man behind us. We cannot serve Him as the Old Man, we must transform ourselves into the New Man.  This means we need to leave our old habits behind as we strive to make new practices into habits. The only way to do this is through His Help and repetition of those new practices. It is not unlike any other skill we develop, we have to go through constant repetition of these new practices to form them int our spiritual habits.  We cannot follow the direction of Jesus towards God without the help of the Holy Ghost; this is the Trinity in actual practice.  If you believe in Jesus, you must believe in God and follow Him; you can do neither without the help of the Holy Ghost. Without the Holy Ghost, we are like men who desperately need glasses to see. Without the Holy Ghost as our correcting lens, we cannot see what He wants us to see in order to act.  With the Holy Ghost, we can see what needs to be done and also act upon it.

The Holy Ghost is key to all of our efforts here on Earth. We cannot do anything to advance our Lord’s cause here on Earth without His presence within our hearts. So, we must accept the help that the Holy Ghost will give us. To truly accept His Help, we must first listen to Him and then act upon what He says for us to do.

When Jesus came to the disciples on Sunday evening, He breathed the Holy Ghost into their hearts. He gave the disciples the power to pass His Forgiveness on to their followers.  As ministers of God, we follow the disciples, but we have not the power to forgive, except as we find in the Lord’s Prayer, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  We do have the ability to tell you that if you repent, then God will forgive you. Through our Lord, if you repent, He has forgiven you. 

The key word here is repent!  We must “go and sin no more!” as Christ told the lady who was an adulteress. He did not tell her it was okay to do what she wanted to do, the way she wanted to do it and perhaps suggest a more flattering shade of lipstick.  No, He told her that her sins were forgiven, but she was to “go and sin no more!” We repent not only in word, but we must repent in our deeds also, so that we can truly show the world that we have faith. If we do not repent, then we do not have faith in Him. We must have faith in Him, so therefore, we must truly and earnestly repent of our sins and do our utmost best to “go and sin no more.” That is how we can truly show that we have faith. That is all that He asks, is us to actually DO our best, not just say that we are doing our best.

So, what to take from all this?

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  John 3.16

If you get that, you have the Holy Ghost in your heart.  If you open your heart, He will breathe the breath that sends The Comforter to you. Then you shall have the knowledge to act the way He wants you to act. You will have surefire knowledge of the course that He wants you to take.

When the time comes, how will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

Easter Sunday

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

Sermon - Rev Jack Arnold - 2018

Church of the Faithful Centurion 

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

 Consider these words from the Collect:

… who through thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life; We humbly beseech thee that, as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect…

In the Collect, we acknowledge God sent His Son to be our Savior.  Think about that, the Creator, Lord and Master of the Universe sent His only Son to not only live amongst us and and minister and guide us but to give His earthly life as a one time sacrifice for our sin that we might be accounted as perfect in out final accounting, the resurrection.  Today is the day of His Resurrection, where we celebrate His triumphant return from his descent into Hell after he died on the Cross and battled Satan for our souls. Not a lot of people think about the suffering Christ endured on our behalf after His painful death upon the cross. When HE died His sufferings had only just begun as He descended into darkness itself, Satan’s dominion to do battle with Satan for our souls. We do not know much about the particular details of that battle, but it is good enough for us to know that He triumphed and won our eternal freedom. He freed us from the shackles from Death. God valued His Son exceedingly, but consider then how much He loves us in turn to allow His Precious Only Begotten Son to die a painful death and to do battle with the Devil for our eternity.

The Collect also points out that we need God’s special grace to prevent, that is to go before us, and to set good desires in our mind and overcome the natural evil desires. This is a point that not a lot of churches make these days as they have been overcome by the whims of the Word. We need His presence within our hearts and minds if we are to follow Him.

Jesus set an example of humility and patience, both exceedingly rare qualities in us. That example is extremely difficult for us to follow without God’s help. This is the reason God sent the Holy Ghost to be here with us.  The Holy Ghost was sent to us that we might have understanding, comfort, strength, perseverance, courage, inspiration; all qualities we lack without the help of God.  With Jesus’ sacrifice and the help of the Holy Ghost to follow Him, turning our backs on this world, we can be part of His resurrection. The resurrection itself sets a pattern that we should follow. We must first die, that is to stop our sinning, then rise again, that is to live, with humility and patience like the example Jesus set for us. We must resurrect our lives and transform them into something new. There was a reason why Easter was set in the springtime. Not only was it close to the actual time of His death and rising again, but it came at a time where the flowers bloomed anew, having been dead in winter, as Christ had been dead, and rose again, just as those flowers bloom again. This is very symbolic of His Death and Resurrection and it is no coincidence Easter happened during this time. 

Jesus set the standard of obedience to God’s will and He expects us to follow Him.  His standard is an extremely difficult act for us to follow. natural inclination is not set to follow His will but ours. That is the main reason for the difficulty. It is hard!  However, when you stop and think about what Jesus went through, is it as hard as His Trials and Death and Battling Satan? No matter who you are, the answer is never going to be yes. For no matter what bad times we go through, it is nothing compared to what He went through. And in the end, the path we must follow will still be easier than if we refuse to follow Him and try and forge our own path. We will be far happier if we follow his example and lead a righteous and steadfast life, full of grace and humility, as well as patience. 

In our lives, it is important to think about Jesus’ example that before we do what we want to do.  Is what you are wanting in line with Jesus’ message? Think about the answer.  If you let the Holy Ghost in to your heart you will know the answer, you will know what you are supposed to do.  You may not like it, but you will know it. Which is more comforting than the World’s way, which seems to go off in every which direction, and they are never certain about anything. However, we can be certain about what we know, what believe and we can translate that certainty into our actions. This is because we follow the ultimate unwavering source of truth, God Himself.

Jesus knew what was coming, how much it would hurt both His Body and Soul as He went through with the crucifixion and subsequent descent in to Hell.   Yet, He also knew this was God’s Will that we might live.  If He did this for you, how can you not follow Him wherever His Will takes you? If He was willing to do that for all of us, then how can we not repay Him to the best of our ability? His Sacrifice demands that we repay Him to the best of our ability, by the sheer nature of it; his perfection being offered in place of our imperfection.

These days people have forgotten how special Jesus’s Death and Resurrection is to us. It is a sign of the times, perhaps maybe even close to the end times that Churches have fallen into apostasy and have in fact are even actively denying His Ministry, His Death and His Resurrection. Jesus commanded us to always remember His Death and Passion, that we might be partakers of His Heavenly Kingdom. If we do not remember His Death and Passion, can we truly be partakers of His Heavenly Kingdom?

I do not believe so, for He is asking us to act and if we do not choose to act for Him then we cannot be truly on His Side. It is not enough just to ‘have’ faith, we need to back our faith up with actions and choose to act For Him, to remember His Ministry, Death and Resurrection and do our best with the help of the Holy Ghost to follow the standard He set.

His example is one that is difficult to follow even with the help of the Holy Ghost, but impossible to follow without the help of the Holy Ghost. Our eternal life does not come to us for free. It was paid with the blood of God’s only begotten Son. We have a debt to Him that we cannot even close to repaying, but we can start by choosing to follow Him each and every day. Where we fall short, we get back up the next day and do better than the previous day.

Let us remember His Example when times get harder and more difficult as it becomes closer to the end of this world and the beginning of our eternity with God. Let us act for Him and make it known that we reject mammon and embrace the example of Jesus Christ. We may lose friends and even some family as a result of standing with God, but I know the consequences for not standing with God are far worse than losing people in your life.

When the time comes, how will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God