I appeal to you by the mercy of God. This appeal is made by Paul, or rather, it is made by God through Paul, because of God’s desire to be loved rather than feared, to be a father rather than a Lord. God appeals to us in his mercy to avoid having to punish us in his severity.

Listen to the Lord’s appeal: In me, I want you to see your own body, your members, your heart, your bones, your blood. You may fear what is divine, but why not love what is human? You may run away from me as the Lord, but why not run to me as your father? Perhaps you are filled with shame for causing my bitter passion. Do not be afraid. This cross inflicts a mortal injury, not on me, but on death. These nails no longer pain me, but only deepen your love for me. I do not cry out because of these wounds, but through them I draw you into my heart. My body was stretched on the cross as a symbol, not of how much I suffered, but of my all-embracing love. I count it no loss to shed my blood: it is the price I have paid for your ransom. Come, then, return to me and learn to know me as your father, who repays good for evil, love for injury, and boundless charity for piercing wounds.

Listen now to what the Apostle urges us to do. I appeal to you, he says, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. By this exhortation of his, Paul has raised all men to priestly status.

How marvellous is the priesthood of the Christian, for he is both the victim that is offered on his own behalf, and the priest who makes the offering. He does not need to go beyond himself to seek what he is to immolate to God: with himself and in himself he brings the sacrifice he is to offer God for himself. The victim remains and the priest remains, always one and the same. Immolated, the victim still lives: the priest who immolates cannot kill. Truly it is an amazing sacrifice in which a body is offered without being slain and blood is offered without being shed.

The Apostle says: I appeal to you by the mercy of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Brethren, this sacrifice follows the pattern of Christ’s sacrifice by which he gave his body as a living immolation for the life of the world. He really made his body a living sacrifice, because, though slain, he continues to live. In such a victim death receives its ransom, but the victim remains alive. Death itself suffers the punishment. This is why death for the martyrs is actually a birth, and their end a beginning. Their execution is the door to life, and those who were thought to have been blotted out from the earth shine brilliantly in heaven.

Paul says: I appeal to you by the mercy of God to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living and holy. The prophet said the same thing: Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but you have prepared a body for me. Each of us is called to be both a sacrifice to God and his priest. Do not forfeit what divine authority confers on you. Put on the garment of holiness, gird yourself with the belt of chastity. Let Christ be your helmet, let the cross on your forehead be your unfailing protection. Your breastplate should be the knowledge of God that he himself has given you. Keep burning continually the sweet smelling incense of prayer. Take up the sword of the Spirit. Let your heart be an altar. Then, with full confidence in God, present your body for sacrifice. God desires not death, but faith; God thirsts not for blood, but for self-surrender; God is appeased not by slaughter, but by the offering of your free will.

Love 2 way street

Jesus: I know my own and my own know me.When I created you, I built two needs into your soul: the need to love, and the need to be loved. If you don’t learn to love, you will never flourish, and if you don’t discover that you are loved, you will never learn to love. Love is always a two-way street, an exchange, an embrace. It’s much harder for you to let yourself be loved than it is to love. Because to be loved, you have to let yourself be known. You cannot be loved fully by someone who doesn’t know you fully. This is why every earthly love is precarious; you never know if the person who loves you will continue to do so when they know you better. 

I know you through and through, completely, even better than you know yourself. I know all the things you keep hidden from others, all the things about you that you barely understand yourself. I know you so thoroughly because I gave you life, I brought you into existence, and I have been holding you and sustaining every instant of your life. I know you uniquely, totally, and so I can love you as no one else. You never have to worry about my love waning, because I have already shown you, while you were still a sinner, still a rebel, that my love endures to the end, even to death on a cross. You have nothing left to fear. Nothing is hidden from me, and yet I still love you without an ounce of ambiguity or reluctance. I know you, and now you know me. I love you, so come now and love me…

Grace

Grace depends solely upon God’s pleasure

for he is master of his gifts 

and distributes them 

when he desires, 

as he desires, 

and to whom he desires. 

Since these blessings belong to him he does no injustice to any one. 

Since he does not force our will, 

he takes what we give him, 

but he does not give himself completely, 

until we give ourselves completely. 

You are my friends if you do what I command you (Jn 15:14). 

The Lord reveals himself and gives himself to his sincere friends so that his words may be verified in, them: “that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full”. 

But any one who is not prepared to give himself totally to God will never arrive at experiencing the joy of his friendship and of his intimate secret communications. 

Graces like these are reserved for his favored children. He would not want them to leave his side nor does he leave them, for they no longer want to leave him. 

Teach me to trust in you, to rejoice in you, to fear only whatever could separate me from you. 

At the Cross

We are Murdering God

We are being Redeemed as His Children

Who can fathom the love 

that at the exact same time 

we are murdering Him, 

he is reclaiming us as his own. 

Right with God

Do you want to be right with God? 

Yes, see below. No, you are lost. 

There are two covenants

Law or Spirit

The law teaches what He likes but no power to do it without the Spirit. The law is not disregarded because it does instruct His ways for us. It is powerful to teach but powerless to save. 

Law is by obedience with no spiritual power

Spirit is by obedience with Spirit power

No one can do the law perfectly

Therefore the only salvation is by the spirit 

Christ came to make us eligible to receive the spirit

We have to acknowledge, believe, and receive the Spirit of Christ 

Acknowledge our weakness and inability 

Believe Jesus died and Resurrected for me and payed my sin debt to God

Receive the gift of the indwelling Spirit of Christ to obey him which leads to true life 

Galatians 5:14

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

If you have not accepted Christ then your only option to be right in God is by the law.  Which no man can accomplish. You are being lost. 

If you have accepted Christ you must walk in the Spirit power and let Him crucify your own flesh. 

Galatians 5:18

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Galatians 5:24

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

There are only two roads 1. be right with God or 2. be lost. There is only one way: Jesus Christ. 

Today's Meditation

“I’ve appointed the Devil to tempt and to trouble My creatures in this life [St. Catherine of Siena reports that Our Lord said to her]. I’ve done this, not so that My creatures will be overcome, but so that they may overcome, proving their virtue and receiving from Me the glory of victory. And no one should fear any battle or temptation of the Devil that may come to him, because I’ve made My creatures strong, and I’ve given them strength of will, fortified in the Blood of My Son. Neither the Devil nor any other creature can control this free will, because it’s yours, given to you by Me. By your own choice, then, you hold it or let it go if you please. It’s a weapon, and if you place it in the hands of the Devil, it right away becomes a knife that he’ll use to stab and kill you. On the other hand, if you don’t place this knife that is your will into the hands of the Devil—that is, if you don’t consent to his temptations and harassments—you will never be injured by the guilt of sin in any temptation. Instead, you’ll actually be strengthened by the temptation, as long as you open the eyes of your mind to see My love, and to understand why I allowed you to be tempted: so you could develop virtue by having it proved. My love permits these temptations, for the Devil is weak. He can do nothing by himself unless I allow him. So I let him tempt you because I love you, not because I hate you. I want you to conquer, not to be conquered, and to come to a perfect knowledge of yourself and of Me.”

—St. Catherine of Siena