Daily Reflections Feb 20, 2018

Isaiah 55: 10 - 11; Matthew 6: 7 - 15

“Thou has picked me up from among the sinful and sanctified me. Thy Commandments are in my heart and Thy spirit guides my soul. Let Thy Spirit guide me in my prayers so that I may worship Thee in Spirit. Inspire and correct my deeds to be free of evil and hypocrisy, so that I may worship Thee in Truth.Thou taught me to pray in righteousness and this earnest prayer will lead me to Thee as Thy accomplishes Thy will in all things.”

It is the Lord’s will to accomplish works that will make us better people. We can only become better people when we keep ourselves close to Him. The only way to cling to the Lord is to put all our faith and hopes on the Lord and His plan. Thus, it becomes eminent on our part to take active part in God’s Plan, thus paving the path to our sanctification and holiness in Him. To alight our minds, let us take a simple example. To warm our food, we must place our food as close as we can to the source of energy and heat. Any source of energy and heat has some specific properties by which we must abide to take the greatest benefit of that energy and if we cross those boundaries, that energy could burn us and our deeds. In the same way, if we want to be holy and good people, we must remain as close as we can to God obeying His will and abiding by His Commandments. If we falter, we become transgressors and our sinfulness burdens our life with a gruesome conflict between the Spirit and the Flesh.

God is the source of all energy and through this energy that is Holy, Divine and Good He has created everything that exists. This divine energy is an intrinsic and integral part of everything in creation and yet, not everything that exists in creation is sanctified with God’s Spirit to be Holy or Divine. Thus, God makes a distinction between mankind and the rest of His creation, because we are Sanctified with His Spirit enabling our bodies to become Temples of His Holy Spirit and God specifically declares, “You shall be Holy, for I the Lord am Holy”. This declaration makes it crucial for us to adhere and co-operate with God’s will. If we don’t fall in line, we tear ourselves away from that well illuminated path of God’s plan and disperses ourselves into darkness and oblivion. There a transgressor loses all direction and to survive, that person struggles trying to pave a separate way that seems logical and seems to have a happy ending. But without God, there can be no happy endings. Because with God, life is eternal and it is abundant in happiness that never ends. And this is what the Prophet Isaiah prophesies in the Book of Isaiah 55: 10-11. God’s plan for His creation and for our world will surely and definitely be accomplished in every aspect and perfectly to every detail of God’s design. There is no otherway about it because whatever is defiled and whatever tries to defile God’s plan gets corrupted and falls out of His plan into the darkness where it will eventually be destroyed.Thus, through time that is indefinite and incomprehensible to the Human mind, God’s plan continues to remain pure, sanctified and undefiled.

God wants each and every one of us to remain faithful and sustain our holiness patiently adhering to His plan, because this life will pass in a moment and there is eternity in the afterlife.We have been carved in the palm of God’s hand and created in His own image and likeness. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He has provided us with all the knowledge we need in the Bible for it is our Spiritual Book of Wisdom. However, if we still lack in understanding, Jesus Christ has sent us the Holy Spirit to inspire us to pray andto protect us from uttering worthless babbles, The Gospel of Matthew 6: 7-15 reminds us that Jesus has even taught us to pray in righteous manner, that is most pleasing to God the Father.

God has already declared us to be His children and as Jesus teaches us to pray, He most appropriately teaches us to address and beseech God as Our father or even ‘Abba’. We declare to all the spirits surrounding us, that we call to our God who is in Heaven and whose Name we accept and declare Holy and above all other names. We affirm and proclaim God to be our Solemn King, pleading His Divine Kingdom to be amongst us, as we believe and attest that His plan will be accomplished in Heaven as well as on earth. We realise the weakness of our flesh and implore the Lord to nourish our lives by providing food for our bodies as well as nourishment for our soul; For Christ has declared His Own Body and Blood and the Spiritual food and the Spiritual drink that nourishes and nurtures our spiritual life. We beg the Lord to forgive our transgressions that separates us from His Kingdom and we intermittently declare that we are willing to forgive those who hurt us so that we may also remain united with the rest of mankind as one body acceptable to God. Finally, we entreat the Lord to mercifully spare us from heavy testing, to deliver and protect us from all malignant attacks of the devil.

As we pray and remain in God’s light, it is crucial that we do not practise hypocrisy. For how can we expect to be forgiven by the Almighty God whom we can’t see, if we are unable to forgive a human being who we can see and whose weakness we understand. Let us adhere to God’s Commands and pray to remain faithful, avoiding all forms of hypocrisy, so that we can continue to be part of God’s plan that will ultimately be completely fulfilled obtaining for us, Eternal Life.

- By Bro Maryo