Deacon Tom Writes,
“Keeping God’s Word”
Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year C
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 alone 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
Reading Recommendation: The Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark former Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington provides a provocative report which challenges conventional wisdom and finds that Christianity's astounding dominance of the Western world arose from its offer of a better, more secure way of life.
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