Commitment

      The first Commandment in Matthew 22:37, 38 "And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment." If we are to obey the first commandment we must love the Lord with all of our heart, soul and mind. It did not say to partially love the Lord with a little bit of your heart, soul and mind. The first commandment demands total commitment on our part with every bit of our heart, soul and mind.
     I will not question your faith, belief or even the amount of love in your heart for God. I am asking you, are you totally committed to following the path that God has laid out for you through his son Jesus Christ? I believe you really want to but something in your heart is holding you back. You are not really where you want to be in his service. You are struggling to be better but having a hard time to advance in your progress. Total commitment is your goal but partial commitment is where you are now. I know you feel sad and sometimes feel like a failure because of your lack of success however I also know you haven't given up and you will keep on trying to get it right.
     We are getting it right by not giving up on ourselves and our God. In time we will find the answers that we are looking for so to succeed in strengthening our commitment to God. In finding those answers we must look deeply inside of ourselves to find that which has become an obstacle to our commitment. Is there something missing in your life that must be found? Is there something broken that must be fixed? Are you holding on to something that must be let go? Something is pulling you away from God. Something is making you to walk backward instead of forward.
     Due to our imperfect condition sin can play a big part in why we are not totally committed to God. Especially if it is deeply ingrained within us. For example, it is difficult to over come an addiction that we my have. It will take a lot of work on our part to overcome it. It isn't impossible to overcome an addiction but it does take a commitment on our part to do the work that is necessary. There will be a lot of set backs and you will need to be determined to never give up.
     There will come a time when you will reach a point where you are ready to hand your life over to God and make that total commitment to Christ our Lord. I hope for you that you can make a total commitment to God without going through much suffering, however some will only come to God when they hit the bottom and there is no where else to go but up.
     Our eyes must be clearly open to see that sin can be the lead weight that is pulling us down. We must come to understand that our sin or whatever weakness that is within us can be a barrier between us and God. If we want to have a total commitment to God, we have to be willing to let go to whatever that is holding us back. Only then we will be ready to give God all of our heart, soul and mind. 

     

Have We Forgotten?

      Moses spoke these words to the Israelites that roam the desert for forty years. These words could be applied to us today. Deuteronomy 8:11-14, 17 "Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Beware lest you say in your heart, "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth."
     Moses goes on to tell them that it was not their power that brought them wealth. Duet.8:18 "You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day." Moses warns them what would happen if they forgot what the LORD had done for them. Deut.8:19 "And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall perish." So there are consequences in forgetting the LORD.
     The LORD will also discipline us like a father that disciplines his son. Deut.8:5, 6 "Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his way and by fearing him." The LORD loved the Israelites like a father and wanted the best for them. He did not want them to forget about him but to live by his words and prosper. He made a path through the wilderness for them to follow and have a beautiful life and all they had to do is to remember him and his commandments.
     The words in Deuteronomy chapter eight may have been written for the Israelites but they are important for us as well. The words tell us do not forget the LORD and what he has done for you. What did he do for us? He created us and gave us a world to which to live. His very breath brought us to life. We cannot say that we are independent from God. If he took that in which he created away the land, air and sky where would we be? Independents from God is an deceptive illusion and not based on reality. If we have forgotten about the LORD and all his works then we will be on a destructive path and only with the LORD's mercy can we be saved.

1 Corinthians 4:7 "What do you have that you did not receive? If then you receive it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?"

Psalm 76:11, 12 "I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.

Our Malnourished Soul

     When you was a child you probably did not know how to eat right until you were taught by your parents. If it was up to you, you would probably eat dessert as your main meal. Living off eating candy, cookies, ice cream and cake it would be fun but not healthy in the long run. Your parents know this so they taught you to eat your vegetables as well. If we do not eat a balanced meal our bodies can become malnourished and our health could suffer.
     As a child I was inclined to eat a diet of unhealthy things until I was taught to eat the right things. Now as an adult I still sometimes eat the wrong things and have to force myself to focus on to eat the right things. In this world I find it so easy to to do the wrong things and I have to make a conscious effort to do the right things, perhaps it is because of my sinful nature. Because of our sinful nature, I believe we can become malnourished not only in body but also in spirit.
     I believe that some of the people in our world are living in a spiritual malnourished state. Their minds have become mentally sick and unhealthy. They do acts of violence because they are spiritually malnourished. They live by their sinful nature and ignore their spiritual health. Even if we were taught how to to eat well, we must also be taught how to live in peace. We have to have proper guidance in order to live a healthy peaceful life.
     Proper nourishment for the body is life. Malnourishment for the mind is mental chaos. How can one even function in this world even if their body is healthy but their spirit is suffering? The body and mind must work harmonious together in order to achieve peace and happiness. A balance must be maintained by feeding your body and your mind the proper nourishment it needs.
     John 6:32-35 "Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you true bread from heaven. for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." 

That's Me

      I think a real connection is made when we can see ourselves in each other. We can relate to someone's suffering by the memory of our own. It is the same with their joy if we have experienced the same thing. We have the ability to empathize with each other. Our empathy can reach out and understand the other person's situation. We will have reached one of our highest degrees of understanding when we can say they are us and we are them. Divisions can melt away if we can empathize with one another.
     A scribe asked Jesus, "Which commandment is the most important of all?" and Jesus answered him in Mark 12:29-31 "Jesus answered, "The most important is, Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these." Jesus said you shall love your neighbor as yourself and this is the second most important commandment, so if we are empathizing with our neighbor we are fulfilling the second commandment of love. If we are empathizing with someone we will surely follow it up with kind acts of support and love. By connecting with my neighbor through my empathy, I can see that he is just like me needing that which I would need.
     So with my empathy I can look around my world and see others as myself. I may not always completely understand what they are going through but I can say if I was in their shoes that I could be just like them. If I saw someone suffering, I could say within my mind that's me. If I saw someone without a home this could be me as well. If I saw someone confused, lost and hungry that's me in need of help. Every person that I see I could be them and they could be me if the circumstances were right. My neighbors would no longer be strangers if I saw myself standing in their shoes. I could love my neighbor as myself because with my empathy there will be a common bond between us. I can see that he is a child of God just like myself and we are just trying to find our way in this world and both of us we need some help along the way and through our empathy and love we can help each other.
     Opening your heart and letting yourself feel what others are feeling is a great thing to do. It is letting go of your fear and replacing it with love, it is seeing others as yourself. It is breaking down the barriers between us and making connections. Empathy and love draws us closer together as a people. We are making God proud when we reach out and help others that are in need. They are us and we are them this is the outlook that we must have in order to love your neighbor as yourself. You have to put yourself in their shoes and say this could be me. That's me over there hurting. That's me being sad. That's me needing help. That's me needing a friend. When you can see yourself in every situation and being able to empathize with love then you will find yourself standing next to God. If we all could do this our world would become close to a paradise.

A Slow Drift into the Darkness

     We have to be forever mindful of our present mental condition. A slow drift into the darkness can occur without us even being aware of what is happening. My meaning of a slow drift into the darkness is the feeling of the absence of God's spirit within our life. It is not the absence of God by him, it is the absence of God by us. We ever so slowly inch our way into a dark state of mind. We were praising God at one time and now we feel that we are alone and abandoned. Our mind clouded by the darkness somehow does not remember about God's words of comfort and wisdom. 
     When the light dims within our mind, we struggle to make sense of the things that are happening around us. We rely on our own wisdom to figure things out. We become lost within the darkness and waste so much time in our life in just finding a way out. During my own battle with this darkness God took mercy on me. He saw me as his lost sheep that had wander off and he took action to bring me back to him. God's action for me was sending a guiding light into my mental darkness so that my mind would have a direction to go in. What I had forgotten became clear again that life without God's light is darkness. Once again I felt close to God and went about thanking him and praising him for my rescue.
     Why does this drifting into a darkness happen? If you take a good look at our society, it is not about strengthening our spirituality. Our society is more about who is popular, good looking and wealthy. It about fashion and who is trending on the lateness news and gossip. I do not know if our spiritual growth is even on that list. It is so easy to become so distractive from our main purpose in life in becoming closer to God. We will drift slowly into a dark state of mind if we are not spending enough time studying God's word. God is our only protection from the darkness we must put every effort in staying close to him.
     A slow drift into the darkness will occur because we seem to have an habit in forgetting these words. Matthew 4:4 "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." If we do not take these words seriously we will become lost to a dark state of mind. Even if we take care of our bodies our mind will become spiritually starved for God's word. We must have both food for the body and the mind.
      Even if you do become lost to the darkness there is still hope for God will be looking for you and when he finds you he will rescue you because he loves you. Matthew 18:12-14 "What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish."