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The Work of God |
Jesus said (Mathew
7:3-5)
3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own
eye?
4 Or how can you say to your neighbor, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' while the
log is in your own eye?
5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to
take the speck out of your neighbor's eye.
We never see the evil in us because we always have high esteem for ourselves, if we sin we
think that our sin is never as big the sin of others and therefore we justify ourselves
before God. We have placed ourselves on a pedestal, we are kings and queens of our little
world, in fact we place ourselves in the center of the universe, we claim the place that
belongs to God (Matthew 23:27).
We never speak about our faults, in fact we tend to hide them because we are dishonest, we
presume that we are good and elevate our goodness with our pride.
So in conclusion we don't see ourselves the way we really are, we truly don't know
ourselves well, so the obstacle in our spiritual path is our lack of self knowledge. We
have a problem, we don't know ourselves and therefore we can not know God (Deuteronomy 7:9).
The concept that I have about myself is
very selfish, I have so much self love that I live to defend and protect myself from any
criticism, which makes me very sensitive and causes my impatience and irritability.
Now in order to know myself truly, I must obey the words of Christ who says "deny
yourself". To deny myself I must look at all the evil in me with magnifying glass so
that amplified I can see the big monster that I am.
I must see that my pride is so big that I don't accept correction, because I highlight my
perfections and strive to hide my imperfections, I don't behave with honesty and there is
no truth in me.
Jesus says I am the truth, so in order to learn from him I have to behave with the truth.
My people perish for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6) Our big
problem is our ignorance since we reject the teachings of God because of our pride. So in
order to overcome this we must receive the wisdom of God which is only given to the
humble, as Jesus says: Blessed are you Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, because you have
hidden the mysteries of the Kingdom from the wise and the learned but have revealed them
to mere children. (Matthew 11:25)
The Wisdom of God and his Kingdom is given to the humble of heart, to those who can be
like little children.
Jesus says (Matthew 23:12) that those who humble themselves
will be exalted but those who exalt themselves will be humbled .
So the great teaching of Christ is that we must become like him who is meek and humble of
heart.
In order to humble ourselves we must see ourselves the way God sees us, we must realize
that there is nothing good in ourselves (Romans 7:18), in
fact without God we are nothing. We are just a pile of worms, a speck of dust in the
infinite universe of God.
So if we desire to know God we must ascend through the ladder of knowledge of God while at
the same time we must descend to the lowest part of ourselves where thrive all the
defects, passions and darkness so that we can learn to despise ourselves and adore God.
The more we know ourselves, the more we will know God, the lower concept we have about
ourselves, the more wisdom we receive about God, so that we can exalt him and love Him for
what He is (Philippians 3:8). (John
17:3) And this is eternal life, that they may know you (Father), the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
To know God is to understand his will. We can not understand God's will if we don't accept
his commandments and furthermore we can not know God who is humble of heart if we are
proud.
Therefore the way to know God is humility, to understand that God has a plan for everyone
of us and that we receive a continuos dose of God's will in all our activities and
interactions with the people around us. When we learn to accept that plan of God above our
desires we begin to know Him more and more.
He who knows God, submits completely to his will, desires to be very small in order to let
the greatness of God appear in his life.
So when can I truly say that I have acquired humility and virtue?
Even though we spend a lifetime of self denial, humility is only found when we see
ourselves without any humility, we can possess virtue only when we realize that there is
only sin in ourselves, in fact we must consider ourselves the last, and then, the words of
the Lord might be for us: the last will be the first (Mark 10:31).
Our life must be a quest for humility of heart, but if we ever have it, we can not say
that we have it, because this will be a very proud statement.
Jesus said to a man why do you ask me about what is good (Matthew
19:17), since there is only one who is good, so a humble man is truly the one who
rejects any praise because there is only one who deserves all the praise, the honor and
the glory.
Saint Paul witnesses to humility by saying I am working my salvation with fear and
trembling (Philippians 2:12).
Our hearts are purified with humility, Jesus says in Matthew 5:8,
the pure of heart will see God. He opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6)
The road to sanctity is full of contradictions and difficulties, it is a road of humility
and self denial and presents no other comfort than the cross.
Being disciples of Jesus involves becoming like him, who is meek and humble of heart. He
is the way, the truth and the life, he is our strength, our hope and our salvation. He
invites us to walk his path of humility, where pain becomes joy, the cross the key to
heaven and sufferings the offering to God as purification for our sins in union with the
sufferings of Christ.
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