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Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California
Consider
these words from the Collect:
… protector of all that trust in thee, without
whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; Increase and multiply upon us thy
mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things
temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal…
We
desperately need God’s Help, yet paradoxically,
God can only help us if we put our trust in Him, we can never be strong,
nor set aside to Him, if we do not let Him be our leader. No one can be their own leader, no one. Each of us, no matter our position, must have
an immutable directional reference or we become hopelessly lost. For navigation, we have a magnetic compass or
better yet the Pole Star, Polaris, which will tell us True North so we can keep
headed in the right direction. People
have died of starvation in a closely wooded area less than a mile across
because they became lost while following their own sense of direction. By definition, they were always less than
3,000 feet from safety, yet they died after many days. So it is with our spirits.
Like Peter,
if we are separated from Christ, then we too shall become lost. But, if we have
the Holy Ghost, we are not separated from God and Christ and will thus become
stronger. So, if we have the Holy Ghost in our heart, he will both strengthen
us and help us to holy, that is set aside. He can also help us be merciful to
other people. We just need to listen to what the Holy Ghost says and act upon
it.
We need a
leader to follow. We cannot be our own leaders. If we try to become our own
leaders, it will not work. But if we will follow His lead, we will pass through
this world in good order and go on to the next in eternal happiness. This is a
very common theme within Scripture, do what God asks, be happy. Don’t do what
God asks, don’t be happy. It seems simple enough in theory, but
a lot harder in practice. It is a lot easier
said or thought about than done. We
want to do what we want to have fun, God wants us to do what we need to
do to be happy. Fun and Happy do not mean
the same thing, whioe sometimes, actually oft times, they are used
interchangeably, their meaning is orders of magnitude different.
God is the
only one who we should be concerned about, if we follow Him, then those who
really matter will like us for who we are and how we conduct ourselves while
following God and those who don’t are of no
concern. Do what is right, avoid what is wrong and you will be happy is a basic
principle of the Christian faith.
Paul
builds on this, telling us that walking God’s
path, though it may seem hard at the time, is nothing compared to the reward we
receive in heaven for following God’s will. There may be quite a struggle
on this Earth before we go to our heavenly home. Paul assures us that heaven
will be worth the wait. It ties in also with the collect saying that we need to
focus not on things temporal, but things eternal. Meaning we need to look at
ourselves and our actions with the long long term view with the goal of getting
to heaven for eternity. As I have often said eternal life doesn’t just start when you die and leave
this Earth for Heaven, it
starts right now. The Collect is asking for God to help us make our way through
this temporal universe to His Realm, the ultimate eternal universe of
Heaven. We need His help to guide us through all of lifes trials and
temptations. We have to keep our end
goal of our destination in mind whenever we are undergoing a frustration day,
week or hour. We do have the ultimate guide to help us in Scripture and the
Holy Spirit, so let us focus on them whenever we are coming across
difficulties. And also focusing on what our reward for staying the course will
be will help us as well.
In
the end, our reward will outweigh all of our struggles, if we will but keep our
eye on the true prize. Our struggles
here on Earth in the eternal view will not be as big as what our eternal reward
will be, if we but stay the course that God has set for us. God gave us free will,
which if we exercise it properly, that is the will to overcome temptation. What at first seems like a constrained way of
living, once actually lived is really perfect freedom. It only seems
constrained, because we cannot conceive how following His Word will allow us
true freedom. If we overcome temptation
to do what we want and do what God wants, we will receive the gift of eternal
salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
For until Christ, there was no delivery from the pain of worldly
existence; through Christ there is redemption of our souls and our resulting
bodily resurrection. This is the great gift that Christ has given us, the
redemption of our souls and our entry into Heaven, by his sacrifice made once
for all time, He secured our entrance into heaven. This is a gift that we should
always be thankful for.
Luke
presents a simple message, yet one that is often misunderstood, with majestic
language which brings the message to a point of incredible sharpness. We are to be a guide to others to Christ, yet
we cannot help others until our own problems are on the way to “solvation”, that
is being solved through the salvation offered by Christ. We need to follow Him, before we ask others to
follow us. After all, if we are not
going in the right direction, what positive value is there in others
following us? We can’t very well lead people to Christ if we
ourselves are not on the road to Christ.
We
do not want to be leading others towards The Pit, rather, we want to be sure we
are on the right path before we guide others along the path. We should be
pathfinders, finding the correct path to travel on the journey of life! We must
be honest in our appraisal of ourselves so we can do what we are supposed to.
We also must not judge unrighteously, but judge with righteous judgment through
the Holy Ghost and on the solid foundations of Holy Scripture. This means not
judging others for sins yourself are committing, but are ignoring for the sake
of “judging” your neighbors”, or to put it simply without the Holy Ghost, all of our judgments are unrighteous. This
is what Christ was talking about, and after it, condemn not, lest ye be
condemned.
When
he said use righteous judgement, he was talking about judging people’s behavior by the standards of
Scripture, not condemnation. He was talking about using the Scriptures as the
standard for judging individual’s
behavior. He does not mean us to condemn others. This is
connected with the parable of the mote. Often times when we are tempted to
condemn somebody, we often ignore our own failures and focus on theirs.
Let us get our act together first, before we help others. So, how can we,
imperfect as we are, be honest with ourselves?
The answer is easy, hard to implement, but easy! The Holy Ghost! Let Him into your heart and do what you are
told. Simple, yet hard to do. We want to do what we want to do. But yet, it
is what must be done, no matter how hard it seems at the time. It will get
easier as we do it, but it will never be truly easy. But it is way easier than
the alternative, which is not following God’s
Word.
Speaking
of doing, what we do to others is a good measure of how we follow God’s Will and
Direction. We are expected to treat
others as we would be treated. Remember the Golden Rule, do unto others as you
would have done unto you. Our real earthly fortune, as well as are eternal
lives, are a reflection of our commitment to God.
We
are so ready to condemn the performance of others when our own is even
worse. It is common within all of us,
especially me particularly. As Paul tells us, “all fall
short.”
The operative word here is ALL.
If we look to condemn and repair our own spiritual lives before
condemning others, we will be better suited to help them. Our beam before their mote.
For
only when we have taken care of our own spiritual health by looking to God for
help to evaluate and improve how we follow His Word, we will be able to
effectively spread the Word of His love for us.
And that is
our job, to improve ourselves to effectively spread His Word by example; our
action, not our diction, is the measure.
Heaven is
at the end of an uphill trail. The easy
downhill trail does not lead to the summit.
The time is
now, not tomorrow. The time has come,
indeed. How will you ACT?
It is by
our actions we are known.
Be of God - Live of God - Act of God
