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We must stop living our lives as we have done before. We must imitate Christ, who is our model and come back to God the Father as the prodigal son [Luke 15:11-32], acknowledging that we have sinned against Him and against the world, that we don't deserve to be His sons. Knowing that we have died in our sins and that now we want to live, we must come very humbly before God to receive the clothing of our Salvation in Christ Our Lord.
Many times we justify ourselves and think that we are good, but goodness is to acknowledge that there is so much evil in us that goodness is always lacking, holiness is never found thinking that we are saints already, even St. Paul says that He is working out his Salvation with fear and trembling [Phil 2:12].
Jesus says that the first will be the last and that the last will be the first. Therefore we are not to pass judgment, whether for good or bad because there is only one judge, we cannot say that we are already saved because there is only one Saviour [James 4:12], and we can not say that we will not be punished because that would be not to have any fear of God. Any such lofty thoughts of ourselves can only be pride in the eyes of God. So humility remains as the key to holiness.
To be humble means to be small before God, to diminish so much so that God can increase in us [John 3:30] to become as little children because of them is the Kingdom of Heaven. To deny ourselves all the Glory and the reward, so that we will work out our Salvation for the only interest of loving and serving God, not for our own reward of Heaven. We must be totally detached of our possessions either material or spiritual, since nothing belongs to us but to God.
A slave is someone who depends totally on his master, in the same
way by becoming the servants of Christ, we learn to become His slaves of Love and we give
ourselves totally to Him for His greater Glory [Ephesians 6:6].
And God in His goodness will not despise the humble but the proud, He will uplift those
who bend their pride in total humility and acknowledge that He is all Power, Wisdom and
Love.
We have been bought at a great price [1 Peter 1:18-19] by a
divine Master, Our Lord Jesus Christ, therefore we must renounce the devil who is the
master of sinfulness, we must renounce the world which becomes our master with its
allurements and we must renounce the flesh by mastering it, otherwise we become totally
carnal and led by our passions.
If we imitate Christ, we imitate someone who being of divine nature, emptied Himself totally [Philippians 2:5-7] to become a slave and the ramsom for all those who love Him . If there is only one who is good, let us imitate Him.
He said to the Father, "forgive them because they do not know what they do" [Luke-23:34], by his death we have been forgiven; but He said unless you forgive others you will not be forgiven [Matthew 6:12-15]
The first step in our inner healing is to forgive everyone, to eradicate all resentments from our hearts in order to have the new heart and spirit that the Lord promised to give us [Ezekiel 36:26] . Once we are healed, we can become channels of God's healing to others.
Mary the Blessed Mother of Our Lord was the first Christian, She followed the Lord and imitated Him, She became like Him. She was made sinless by the Grace of God and She retained that purity and holiness throughout her life, only to increase it for the greater Glory of God.
To become like Jesus, let us imitate Mary.
Colossians 3:17 All whatsoever you do in word or in work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
Christ is the clue to the sanctification of our lives, everything we do in Him except sin of course, becomes sanctified.
Saint Paul says that we must pray without ceasing, and our entire life becomes a prayer of thanksgiving, adoration, praise and immolation to God when we live totally in Christ.
The Will of God is that we become holy [1 Thess. 4:3] , that we turn away from lust and all kind of evil, so that we can honour Him as temples of His Holy Spirit, we must bear the Presence of God to others, we must become the light of the world as the Lord said to the apostles.
As we work daily, we are fulfilling the plan of God for us, some are called to serve Him with the great honour of the Priesthood, others have the vocation of matrimony, others remain single and yet they serve the Lord in different ways through their work.
Every kind of productive work is the Will of God for us, since He said "You shall earn your bread by the sweat of your brow" [Genesis 3:19]. As we do our work gladly, we glorify His Will.
Work is a wonderful opportunity to glorify the Lord if we make it as a prayer, if we offer it to Him, if we do it in His Holy Name, if we do it with Him. Let us always include Jesus in our lives, in our work, in every thing that we do, He will be there in spirit blessing us for having asked Him to be our companion [Matthew 28:20].
As we work, we serve one another. If we mix our work with Love, then we mix it with God who is Love, and it becomes sanctified. We must rest assured that we will receive our wages at the end of the day, because when we work for God, we have the best employer in the universe [Matthew 10:42].
In baptism we receive sanctifying Grace from Our Lord, which opens the way to our Salvation [1 Peter 3:21]. Grace is a gift of God, that helps us along our journey of faith towards the goal of eternal happiness.
Even though we have weaknesses through our sinfulness, the Grace of God prevails and is always with us helping us in different ways. Some receive also special graces or charisms of the Holy Spirit which enable them to work for the Church and edify it by their example [1 Corinthians 12 all chapter].
The favours of God can come to us also through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints. This is why we Catholics, have such recourse to Our Lady, because She is full of Grace so that the favours of God can flow into our lives through that magnificent channel, which is also our Mother [Proverbs 8:32-36].
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The
Work of God
www.theworkofgod.org