Are We Loving?

Are you loving? My answer to this question would be "yes" and I am sure that your answer would be a "yes" as well. I look at my life and I love God, my family, my girlfriend, my friends. These are just the few of the groups of people I love. I am sure these groups are very similar for you.

As I examine my life closer I can see that my life truly fails to love. My brothers and sisters, we all fail to love, some more than others. The groups mentioned above are easy to love. Yes, we may fight with our siblings or our girlfriend/boyfriend or wife/husband, but we still love them so incredibly much. It would almost feel impossible not to love them and we would feel heartless if we didn't love them.

I look at my daily life and I see all the people passing through and I have to ask myself this question, "Did I love that person?" Unfortunately, the answer to that question is more likely than not "No." If you have come up with the same answer my brothers and sister, this is good news. It means we are not perfect. It means we still need to grow and the best part is that we need to grow in deeper relationship with God.

I have found that it is impossible to love the way we are called to love if we don't have Christ in the center of our lives. Everyone loves family and close friends, but it is hard to love the people that may only be in our lives for only a minute. Those people that are only in our lives for a small amount of time, deserve all the love we have as well. It could be the person who bags your groceries, or your bank teller, or the mailman and obviously the list goes on. Take just those three people. How often do we come in contact with them and when we do, are we loving? Yes, we can be nice to them, but there is a huge difference between being nice and loving. I cannot give you that answer, that is something you will have to figure out.

Jesus challenges us to love our enemies and I think that for some of us, that may be too much to ask at this moment. My brothers and sisters take every chance you possibly can to exercise love. As you continue to love, love will be more natural for you and then it will truly be who you are, but you cannot love without the Love of Christ in you. No matter how hard you try, you cannot put off becoming closer to God and surrendering your life to Him and still think that you can love.

We need to ask God for the ability to love, whether it be that person that spends one minute in our life or it could be that person who we cannot stand. Ask God for the Grace to love. I promise you will be richly rewarded, but I cannot promise that a life like this will not hurt and will be easy.

I am just like St. Paul

I awoke this wonderful Saturday morning and started to reflect on who I am and what I do and I had a revelation. I am just like St. Paul. This probably doesn't make too much sense. St. Paul was one of the greatest apostles. He wrote so many epistles and spread the Good News to anyone he could. He didn't just love, nor did he just love until it hurt, love truly was engraved in who he was. He also endured much suffering as he was beat, stoned, imprisoned and ultimately killed. How am I anything like that? Well, brothers and sisters I am nothing like that.

There is one chapter in Romans that I get discouragement from, but also great comfort. It is Romans 7:15-25.

"What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand. For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin."

There is quit a bit here and I do not wish to dissect all of it. I only wish to make two points.

First Point - Don't we all feel how St. Paul feels here? We are constantly sinning and sometimes we feel that is all we do and we do no good. My brothers and sisters, I feel this way a lot. It is very normal for us to fall into sin. We are all in different places in our faith journeys. Some of us have just begun or maybe you have barely started, or maybe you are in a great place in your faith journey and are constantly seeking God more and more each day. It isn't important where you are because wherever you are God will bless you. The thing to keep in mind is that no matter what category we fall into is that we will always struggle with sin. This is where I get great discouragement. I look at St. Paul and I think as great an apostle as he was, he still struggled with sin. Doesn't that just make you a little depressed? Why bother struggling living a Christian life if we are just going to continue to struggle?

That question leads me to my second point. St. Paul says, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." This is the key to everything. Although we may sin with our bodies, even when we strive so hard to serve the Lord, there is great hope. Jesus Christ is our redemption. We are not able to achieve any state of holiness by ourselves. The only thing we are able to achieve by ourselves is a state of complete failure and sinfulness. I know that I am someone who likes to do things on my own and will usually not accept much help, but in this case we are called to completed humble ourselves and go to Our Savior broken, weak, bruised and beaten. If we go to Him having nothing, Jesus will gives us everything.

I believe this is one of the first steps needed to be a Revolution. How can we possibly truly love, when we try to go through this life by ourselves? We can't! It is impossible, trust me brothers and sisters I have tried. We must first submit to Jesus and stop being slaves to sin. Then we can start living in Christ and allow Him to love through us.

My brothers and sisters, do not wait till tomorrow or the next day, or next month to go to God in all your weakness and brokenness. Go to Him today and start your life over with Him. He will love us and bless us abundantly with grace to live the life we are called to live.

It's been a long time

I see that the last date I posted on here was back on June 14th and it is actually the only post on this blog. Over this past month I have had lots of different ideas and every time I start a post I can't finish it. I have laid out a whole plan on what to write about, but that obviously hasn't come to fruition. I believe there was a reason for this.

I believe God doesn't want me focusing on the plan that I wrote out, but my personal experiences. Everyday God's love and grace are poured into my life whether I see it or not. I think He wants me to be in tune with Him and share my own life with you, so that we can grow holiness, faith, joy, peace and ultimately love. I hope that you will return to this site on a regular basis as I am going to put forth the effort to write on here more than a monthly basis.