SOULS SHOULD HAVE EYES TOO

Whenever we come across the life of the saints, their dedication and loyalty to God we can’t help but feel humbled and little before God. We may think that we have been devoting so much time and effort for spreading God's word and doing His will yet when we hear the stories of people who have surrendered their life to doing the work of God our work and sacrifices are diminished to a mere speck. We have to be grateful for such instances when such people call our attention  and pave the way for us to really check, deeply scrutinize and strive to carry out with much more conviction our purpose for the glory of God. Sometimes we come to a point in our life when we ask whether it is worth it to be really good especially when we see some people who live their lives as if there is no God and yet they are prosperous and successful. We should never be won over by this seemingly logical proposition of the world and never abandon our resolve to work, labor and endure all for God’s greater glory. It is not doing good at first nor doing good somewhere along the way that matters most but deciding to do good right now and enduring it all the way. Amen. Hallelujah!

Revelation 1:1-4; 2:1-5

...“I know your works, your labor, and your endurance,... Moreover, you have endurance and have suffered for my name, and you have not grown weary. 4 Yet I hold this against you: you have lost the love you had at first. 5 Realize how far you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”

Today’s psalm brought back memories of what I witnessed on television in 2010 when miners in Chile had to be rescued in a mine. Nobody would ever want to be trapped in a dark mine that is 2000 feet below. What caught my attention was the fact that although some of them had been rescued and brought up to the light they were still prevented from exposing their eyes to the light and were given dark shades to wear to protect them. This is what happens when we dare to step into the darkness and stay there too long we adapt to it and wanting to go back to the light instantly could be harmful. Let us not be led into the dark and imbibe it for too long that we find it difficult to adapt to light. Until now, we have no idea who we are and still in a conflict. Look at the things we do and engage in. This is because we don’t understand who we are. We will be judged by God according to our behavior. We should have God in the core of our identity. What builds our confidence? Think about it. This same reason should apply in our relationship with God. If we know and are aware of how we look right before God, then we should have the confidence of a beloved child of the God most high. How can we not be, knowing that we are covered by the most precious blood of His Son Jesus who took all our sins and died on the cross for our sake then we should be the most confident person of all. Remember, we have the composure of a child of God.  Nothing should stop us from behaving in the way He has meant us to be, lifted up on a pedestal as His very dear children. Today's psalm tells us that if we follow the Lord we will not be in darkness and will have the light of life. God is true to His word and we can always hold on to it more than we can hold to our life. Just like any person striving to maintain a good standing in any aspect of life there are some rules to be followed. People nowadays have become increasingly divided, there are the poor and the wealthy and sometimes we see the not so good, arrogant, bad people cheat in order to get money and get away with it. We must always have this hope in God and not be tempted by the evildoers of their taunting that despite the goodness we do we are not getting anything out of our sacrifices. God knows the private conversations and thoughts and He exposes them and records everything. The idea that we can get away with anything we do is not a good idea. God knows our words, thoughts and deeds. Fear of the Lord in a positive way is one of the greatest virtues as in the book of Wisdom. It is stated that it is the beginning of wisdom if it is paralleled with trust that we will not be put to shame. Those wicked people who think that they have a lot of money, power, disobey God and don't use their resources in accordance to God's will can be compared to chaff that can easily be burned. If we have the right relationship with God then we too can be exposed to the heat of God's love like the sun that can make things go on fire but instead of burning becomes a source of healing like the rays of light shown in a monstrance which symbolizes being in God's presence. We should never lose hope nor fall into despair. Whenever we sin, we must not just acknowledge it. The lesson we always have to remember is to have humility to approach Christ as we acknowledge our sins. This should remind us of Peter and Judas, they both sinned and acknowledged it. Peter wept bitterly after denying Jesus 3x while Judas threw away the silver coins that were paid to him. The difference lies in the fact that Peter as the scriptures say, when he wept, looked at Jesus with a heart, humble and contrite, which God would not despise and ran to Mary. While Judas, fell into despair and hanged himself. Thus we remember these things and always run to God with humility and also to Mary, the mother of Christ who will obtain for us true contrition. There is really a need for God's people to always be connected to Him in order to survive whatever is going on at present and what is to come. We've got to always keep ourselves motivated to do all in our power for the glory of God. All other things fade in the background and should not get our attentions any more than we ought to believe that God is our only hope. We may have started at the peak but as time goes by we may have started to lag or worse go on a downward path. Or could have started off but never worked our way up then it's time we get things straight and be focused so as not to lose sight of the unsurpassed and unfading trophy and blessing that await those who are victorious in the Lord. Today’s psalm continues to give us the guidelines we need to live by to truly prosper in the Lord. God assures us that even though life may bring us so many heartaches and pains we can still stand firm and hope that we will have the light of life if we will persevere, not waver nor falter in following the Lord. Let us choose to live in the light rather than stay in the dark.  God gave us the freedom to choose let us hope and pray that we are always inclined to do the will of God in our lives to carry out His plan of prosperity in our life. It has been impressed to me that God has already given us the gift, all we have to do is open it and use it as intended to serve its purpose. Sometimes we remain stubborn in our old ways we don't realize that everything is just within our reach, it's just a matter of committing and deciding what is right before God. We all know that life becomes difficult when it comes to commitments and making decisions but it will always be worth it after all the hard work as implied in the psalm reading. It doesn't matter who or what we are, whether young or grown up, God will always find a way to bless us in various ways. We just have to open ourselves to Him and always draw near to Him and never stray away from His side. The scriptures say it all. We need not hesitate, stall, delay nor look for anything else further but just follow what the scriptures tell us to do. In fact the bible has an acronym which stands for (B) Basic (I) Instructions (B) Before (L) Leaving (E) Earth. Another thing I am reminded of is my son Jude when he was just a little boy aged 6. When my mother was hospitalized I was the one taking care of her during the day and my brother who is the eldest is the one who slept in the hospital at night and stayed by her bedside. When she died we were both not by her side or no one for that matter because she was brought to a different room for removal of water in her lungs and also the time when my brother and I had changed shift. I just arrived home coming from the hospital and had no thought whatsoever that my mother already passed away. I was in complete denial of the fact that she would be leaving us soon during that time, I had always hoped for a miracle and extension of her life although my mother kept on telling us back then that she is ready to go anytime. I could never forget when I was just entering our home, my son Jude suddenly came up to me while holding a bible in his hand and opened a page in front of me with a picture of a tree beside a river and animals grazing on the land. What my son told me was this, "Nanay (Mother) let’s do a bible study." Since I was so tired, I got the bible from him closed it and told him that we'll do it later. But he was persistent he opened the bible again and lo and behold saw the same picture and page that he showed me a few seconds ago. He did it again for the 3rd time and the same page in the bible was showing up. Because of that I was prompted to finally give in to his persistence and read the bible passage underneath the picture. It was exactly the same message in today's psalm reading. After reading it something in me prompted me to say to him that her grandmother is already healed and will soon be coming home to us from the hospital. This is without knowing yet that it was the same time too when she passed away. Later on I realized that it was God's way of telling us that indeed my mother is healed and has gone home although not to our earthly house but to a place of eternal rest and perpetual light, in paradise. Amen. Hallelujah!

 Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4, 6

R: Those who are victorious I will feed from the tree of life.

1 Blessed the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked nor walks in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company of the insolent, 2 but delights in the law of the LORD and meditates on his law day and night. (R) 3 He is like a tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves never fade. Whatever he does, prospers. (R) 4 Not so the wicked, not so; they are like chaff which the wind drives away. 6 For the LORD watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes.

 Today's gospel speaks of a blind man who was healed by Jesus. He called out to Jesus as Son of David which means that he was able to recognize Him as the Messiah unlike the Jews who remained stubborn in their unbelief. We too, are blind at times of the good things that God has been doing to us since we came to this world. Or we may not be necessarily blind but slow in recognizing God in every single turn in our life just like the Jews. We have lost the awe that is fitting to a great God who can really make things happen and not happen in our lives. We go through life and just let such things pass by unnoticed or taken for granted. This happens most of the time that’s why we really need to learn from the enthusiasm, determination and most of all faith of this blind man in today's gospel. It also shows us how a blind man gained his eyesight and gave glory to God. This means that blindness can be a barrier to giving praise and glory to God. We may not be physically blind but our souls are. We've got to see not only with our physical eyes but most importantly our souls should have eyes too. In this way we can respond and act in accordance to what is truly essential and lasting. We should always be alert, sharpen our senses just like the blind man who was able to hear that Jesus is passing by, though his sense of seeing is impaired he was able to call Jesus' attention and it did not stop him from drawing Jesus near to Him. We may be broken in some aspects of our life but let us not be stopped in utilizing other faculties in order to receive the miracle of Jesus in our lives. We should continue to seek other means to attain our goals and let us continue to call on Him no matter how big the obstacles are in front of us. Just like the blind man in this gospel, we need to see more clearly and have a glimpse of how to serve a God who is more than enough. Unless we see God face to face, we can never fully understand the totality of who our God is. His infinite goodness to us makes us long to serve Him more but our disabilities like this blind man keeps us from doing so that there is really a need to be persistent and calling out to God all the more no matter how embarrassing and difficult our situation happens to be. We simply should never stop and give up for not even our entire lifetime can ever live up to a Holy, Mighty and Immortal God. Amen. Hallelujah!

Luke 18:35-43

As Jesus approached Jericho a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging, and hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” He shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” The people walking in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent, but he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me!” Then Jesus stopped and ordered that he be brought to him; and when he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He replied, “Lord, please let me see.” Jesus told him, “Have sight; your faith has saved you.” He immediately received his sight and followed him, giving glory to God. When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God.