“Such is our Christian life. By desiring heaven we exercise the powers of our soul. Now this exercise will be effective only to the extent that we free ourselves from desires leading to infatuation with this world. … God means to fill each of you with what is good; so cast out what is bad! If he wishes to fill you with honey and you are full of sour wine, where is the honey to go? The vessel must be emptied of its contents and then be cleansed. Yes, it must be cleaned even if we have to work hard and scour it. It must be made fit for the new thing, whatever it may be.” — Saint Augustine from a sermon on 1John.
Do you long for heaven? If you are a Christian, you should because heaven is your home. Jesus said, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” — Jesus
As sordid as the world around us is becoming (the evil will get worse). We must hold to the reality of the Holy Spirit in our lives, our love and loyalty to Jesus Christ and his teachings, and the absolute Divinely inspired inerrant of the Holy Bible. We must increase our desire for heaven and to be with God. That is our perfect reward. Do not love the world or the things of the world. We are in the world not of the world—nor we should not be. Infatuation with the world and the things of the world only serves to distract Christians from what matters to God. What matters to God? The salvation of every man, woman and child in the world through faith in Jesus Christ. We have a Great Commission. Jesus said:
“Go therefore, and making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold I am with you always even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)
The great “I Am” is with us always even to the end of the age! Taking the gospel message to the world around us is our Lord’s assignment to His followers. Do not think it will be easy, but it is our imperative. We are to take the hope and presence of Christ that abides in us to others. We are to be concerned about matters of the soul—our own and the souls of others. The world will not love you for your witness. No, it will despise you, just like it despised Christ who is the Word that was from the beginning with God and is God. He is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Christ said He was preparing a place for us, His followers. What a joy to anticipate! Thomas asked the Lord, “master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Then Jesus told Thomas an eternal truth that every human being needs to hear: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
These words are incongruent to 21st century progressive liberal minds. They pretend to be inclusive, in an exclusionary way. Their welcome is exclusionary in an inclusion of their own making, as are LGBTQ+—and the woke crowd (their gutter Stasi). Conservative evangelical Christians, and Catholic Christians loyal to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, are not included, nor are unwanted children in utero.
New-age television talk show host Oprah Winfrey once said Jesus Christ is not the only way to God, she said there are many ways. Who should we believe? The created or the Creator? If there are a multitude of ways to God, why did Jesus pay the terrible price at Calvary? No, what Oprah espouses is the way of the world.
Western civilization is collapsing before our eyes. Perhaps you’ve noticed. It is happening because Western Civilization has rejected the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for self and self-gratification.
Our marching orders from Jesus Christ could be clearer. The stakes could not be higher: the soul and salvation of every man, woman, and child. We must point the way back to Christ just as He said:
“Go therefore, and making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold I am with you always even to the end of the age.”
If followers of Christ do what Christ asked us to do, perhaps there can still be another great awakening. Who knows? It happened before.
MDP
