Deacon Tom Writes,
“Keeping God’s Word”
In
today’s gospel Jesus tells His disciples, “Whoever
loves me will keep my word and my Father will love him, and we will come to him
and make our dwelling with him”. It sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? If we
keep God’s Word, the Eternal, Almighty, Divine Presence will come and be a part
of our lives forever, through the good times and the bad, through thick and
thin.
The
problem is there are many of Jesus’ words that are really troubling to us;
words that we choose not to believe, let along want to keep; words that
challenge us, like...
“Seek first the kingdom of God
and his righteousness”… Matthew 6:33
“Love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you”…Luke 6:27
“No one
can serve two masters”… Matthew 6:24
“Go and sin
no more”… John 6:11
We
dismiss the hard words of Jesus, the words that are at the core of his
teaching…to love one another – as I have
loved you. Loving one another, showing respect to everyone because of one’s
intrinsic worth, one’s divine
essence, one’s very nature as a child of God, is how we reflect the love of God
in our lives. This love is an active, conscious act of the will; it is how we
cooperate with God, allowing ourselves to be transformed by God and in turn helping bring about the transformation of the world. This is
what it means to keep God’s word. We just can’t pick and choose which words
of Jesus we will accept and which ones we will ignore if we want to have
an authentic relationship with Jesus and grow in his love.
In
all reality there is another question we need to ask ourselves, “Do we really
want God living within us?” Within, well, that may be too close for comfort.
It’s better when he’s living some distance away like the “In-Laws” whom we can
invite over whenever we have something they can do for us. Far enough away that
they can only come over when invited. How much God enters our life is pretty
much our choice! We can keep God’s Word and look forward to the promises he has
made to us, or we can go it alone and see what the world has in store for us. It’s….
all our call.
Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom
Photo attribution -
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