To Know Him is to Love Him!
Fall in love with Jesus by getting to know Him deeply for He wants to give you hope and a future.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
In this reflection, let’s reflect on the greatness of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, on His endless love and infinite desire to help each and every soul.
Jesus is our creator…
Through Him all things were made: “God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him.” John 1:3
Jesus is the Almighty God…
“I am Apha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” Revelation 1:8
Jesus is the Author of Eternal Salvation
“and having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all those obeying Him,” Hebrews 5:9
Jesus showed us His humility from the very moment of His incarnation. Our Lord and God embraced poverty, born in the place where the animals were being kept. Mary and Joseph sought room in the Inn when Mary’s time to give birth had come, but there was no room for the Holy One there. Man had already closed the door to the incarnate God ready to be born.
The question today is how much room is there in our lives for Jesus?
What place does He hold in our day-to-day existence?
Do we trust in Him, praying for His daily guidance or do we trust ourselves and believe in our self-sufficiency?
What Jesus wants the most from us is TRUST!
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” Proverbs 3:5-6
Jesus is Our Good Shepherd and “all of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all.” Isaiah 53:6
God is patient and like a lover enamored with a woman He will not forget, He waits for us, His Bride. He waits patiently for the sacrifice He will not despise: TRUE CONTRITION.
So let us give Our Lord who was willing to be tortured and killed for our sins our confession of love and let us give Him our hearts broken with pain for having offended Him, the source of all goodness.
“My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” Psalm 51:17
The broken and contrite heart is like the fertile soil ready to receive the seeds of God’s love. Holding the precious seeds of God’s love in our hearts, we are called to reflect on God’s will and we are called to act and make choices that will allow us to ultimately give birth to the fruit of His Holy Spirit, not for our vainglory but exclusively and solely for the glory of God.
When we humble ourselves and admit our need for God’s grace, then we become ready to learn. Our teacher Jesus can then begin to give us the gifts of His Holy Spirit: wisdom and knowledge and understanding, courage and reverence and good judgment, wonder and awe.
Jesus is our Healer, our Teacher, the Author of new beginnings, our Comforter and our Consoler, our Redeemer, Our Saviour.
He is calling us today with these words of tenderness and compassion:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28
I have become intimately aware of God’s presence in my life and in my work. Before I write a reflection I ask for God’s grace and in so many ways He teaches me and guides me, using me to communicate great truths about His will and His way. I am mindful of the words Jesus said to St. Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” And St. Paul said, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
I think the most important thing I have learned over the last decade is that God wants an intimate relationship with us, not a casual one. God is all-powerful and He will teach us and guide us and form us into the people He wants us to be IF AND ONLY IF we are ready to SURRENDER TO HIS WILL.
“…I AM YOUR GOD. I WILL STRENGTHEN YOU AND HELP YOU; I WILL UPHOLD YOU WITH MY RIGHTEOUS RIGHT HAND.” Isaiah 41:10
Jesus describes the intimacy that He desires in this way:
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” John 15:5-6
When I first started evangelizing I thought ‘well I will write for awhile and then I will run out of things to say’. I am willing to humiliate myself for the glory of God as I strive to shed light on His way and His truth…See the error in my thinking was that I thought “I” was writing. I realize now that it is GOD that is writing. God is using me to communicate because I have given Him my life, my time, my heart and however little I have I am offering it to Him.
I often sit down at my computer with an idea of something to write about. I never have a plan and yet the words appear so gently and consistently that I marvel at how easy it can be to generate works of love when we give ourselves to God. In these reflections Holy Scripture and personal experiences are interwoven in a spiritual dialogue that is generated through a life force that comes from God, not from me, but from Him, from His Holy Spirit living in me. Thank you for being willing to read what God writes through me.
Each one of us are called into this seamless ONENESS with God, into a relationship of deep intimacy. God will use each of us in our respective walk of life, using our different talents to give Him glory IF AND ONLY IF we are willing.
God’s plan of salvation requires that we surrender our free will to God’s will in order for us to become His disciples on earth. And once we have surrendered our life to Him, God will nourishes us, His disciples, through His Holy Spirit and through His Sacraments of love—Baptism, the Eucharist, Reconciliation.
God said to St. Catherine of Siena “You are rewarded not according to your work or your time but according to the measure of your love.” God values our efforts and He will reward us for the love we put into our work for Him.
St. Catherine of Siena said, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire”
We cannot be who God meant us to be until we become ONE with Him, the only source of LOVE. We cannot love without God being in our hearts, living in us, inspiring us, guiding us, teaching us, nourishing us, slowly and carefully using us as instruments of His mercy and justice, uniting us to Him in His plan of salvation.
All of this may still seem complex to you, but do you know how it all becomes simple to me?
It becomes simple to me when I stand at the foot of the Cross of Jesus. There I see my Holy Lord nailed to an instrument of torture, suffering in agony and I see Him longing for us and I in turn long for Him.
God explained to St. Catherine of Siena that the pain that souls experience in Hell is caused by being separated from God. We may not realize it today, but God is THE HEART’S DESIRE of every soul.
God says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13
And when we find Him we will realize that we have found the ONE our hearts are longing for. No one will ever love us the way God loves us!
Will we deny the Holy One who loves us with such holy desire that He would die for us, proving that love? NO!
Let us pray that all souls be reconciled to God. We who have faith have a responsibility to help spread His Holy Word, to be His witnesses on earth and to pray for one another.
I pray this very day that if you are reading this reflection that God may draw you closely to His Heart. I pray that you will see Him on the Cross of salvation suffering in agony for you, dying for you! Let His infinite love penetrate your heart. Look into His eyes and you will gaze into the eternal horizon and be filled with wisdom and knowledge and understanding. All the challenges of this life will one day pass but His infinite love will last forever.
Give Jesus your life, your trust, your time. Be ONE with Him and know that He will deliver you from the evil one who wants only to deceive you and defile you. Jesus wants to lift you up to be a person of great dignity, a person of virtue that believes in Him and hopes in Him and loves like Him – selflessly, passionately, tenderly!
To you Almighty God be all glory and honour and praise!
We love You Lord Jesus! Saying thank You seems so insufficient to express our great gratitude for Your holy sacrifice on the Cross. May our lives give You glory so that we can express our gratitude, moment by moment, day by day, in perpetuity until we enter the gates of our eternal home, paradise!
Friends please help me to promote The Mercy Movement – a global Christian peace movement that unites followers of Christ of every denomination in a solemn moment of prayer and contemplation of the Passion of Christ each and every day at the time Jesus died for us 3pm (in our local time zones).
The power of our united prayer will change the world, one soul at a time!
“We love because He first loved us!” 1 John 4:19