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Let your life be a sermon, a testimony of God’s love realized and incorporated in your life! Say it, Live it & Give it!
Spiritual warfare however can and will definitely fight
you over allowing this to even come to fruition. This is the path we have chosen, those who
call themselves disciples of Jesus. It
is operated by and through a journey to love unconditionally.
Wow, that’s just as mind blowing to truthfully contemplate
as the Beatitudes of Jesus. They were of
an authority and conditional that we still don’t really understand yet alone
can truly incorporate. There are hints
though around us in seeing unconditional love even in the simplest of things… For
example, every evening I look forward to time with my cats. Let me tell you, cats DO as well as other
innocent creatures show great love.
Love just like happiness are Pandora’s boxes of
confusion, stumbling blocks and places the Evil One will go to battle within
you to try to sabotage and destroy. Speaking for myself, for years, happiness has
been one of those complex battlegrounds. A Battleground that as a disciple of
Jesus, Satan has tried to win a victory over and crush my spirits. Despair and having no faith in yourself can
burgeon a great unhappiness yet alone confusion over purpose and your place on
the journey of the long and winding road of your calling from God.
Perhaps the Old Nature has made a conditional within the
heart to doubt and despair… Whoever said being a Soldier for Christ would ever
be easy yet alone not require a commitment to service? Are you used to being served or do you truly
and truthfully live into serving others for the Glory of God? Being Justified by Faith through Grace isn’t
enough—the seed must be reaped through your life’s response! And only to those
who operate through the ego—do you misunderstand this as works
righteousness. God’s plans and our hands
and hearts are not to be agenda based!
We must prayerfully hear St. Paul’s Words deeply in that
transforming battleground of the heart: “12a For now we see in a
mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.” Standing firm in God’s love
is a lifetime’s journey of struggling against evil, against all that imprisons
and drags us down… Love is the most powerful authority God has not only
exampled to us through Christ Jesus but something we don’t need to be
conditional about!
When I think of innocence and love as a newly forming
postulant in the Franciscan Order of Divine Mercy… I’ve been reflecting on two things. The first being the beauty and innocence of
God’s creatures and how they try to survive around us and our graceless
behavior… St. Francis was a lover of animals and went out of his way to care
for God’s creatures as a part of his calling to share love. The second item I
have been reflecting upon is the notion of “Divine Mercy.”
Mercy is Compassion, Compassion is empathy but what binds
these words together is that they are adjectives for a love that goes beyond
our human understanding to truthfully achieve: agape Love—unconditional love.
If those tears of struggling can’t bear hope any longer for the future yet
alone realize the ultimate goal and purpose of loving God and neighbor… then
the Evil One is winning the spiritual battle.
It is hard to go outside of yourself to see, experience,
realize the world around you as a place needing your love, care, concern,
peace, mercy, kindness… St. Francis
wants us to live into what I mentioned in last week’s sermon—to be an empty
vessel repurposed for the Lord’s use—Be and become not only an instrument of
His Peace incorporated prayerfully into your life but to be convicted in
serving.
The Evil One as “spirits” as anyone suffering from
alcoholism or having family members with an alcohol addiction know; your
resolve to live into your faith is challenged.
Faith is challenged all the time and the face of evil is hard to see but
does show its ugly face or bear its ugly fruit from time to time when you are
being tested. We are not to be caving into
ourselves where we become islands unto ourselves and only serve others for our
own agendas and goals.
This would only prove to be a path into a wilderness you
may not be able to escape from during your lifetime. Then what purpose does life serve? How awful a thought, how personally
destructive! This reminds me of the
wonderful book about the two natures—the Old and the New: “Adjust or Self
Destruct,” by LCMS Pastor Craig Massey. The very conclusion from his first
chapter speaks and rejoices in the truth of today’s lessons: “When a person
receives Christ, the Old Nature (Old man/ Old woman) is crucified with Him on
Calvary and a new creation takes place.
With that New Creation, a battle begins as the Old Nature and the New
Nature compete for control. If the Old
Nature goes unchecked, the Christian life falls apart. The Christian becomes sinful, guilt-ridden,
negative, depressive… When the New
Nature is kept healthy… an exhilarating faith, love, joy and peace become the
believer’s experience.”
Reverend Massey’s theology in this book may be overly
simplifying the road we all must face but speaking the truth in, through love
is a harsh one that reveals an even greater truth, an even greater need! We are
definitely predestined but a destination that is to love and serve—no strings
attached, also meaning, no conditionals but to BE and DO as a child of Grace
and Promise!
Today’s Gospel reveals the hidden voice of evil that
lashes out at Jesus through a young man with an unclean spirit: 34“Let
us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to
destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” The amazing authoritative power of Jesus’
Words, of Jesus’ love not only rebukes the spirits but restores the young man
back to health.
We all confront evil in some form or another in our daily
lives and at those moments when you see in your heart God’s tears as a healing
balm to your soul is when you know that He has won another victory against
Satan for control of your journey! These are those moments as well that help
shape our hearts to KNOW God’s unconditional love for us and promise to us that
He walks with us—we are never alone, we are never forsaken! And I say—
Thanks be to God and truly Hallelujah!
In a few days it will once again be Groundhog’s Day and
that time of year I will be enjoying watching one of my all-time favorite films—Groundhog’s
Day with Bill Murray. Hard to believe
that film is actually 23 years old… but a timeless comedy classic to see
someone struggle to change. As the movie
goes, Phil Connors magically and almost sadistically relives the same day over
and over till he finally has a complete epiphany to change his whole entire
life for the better!
At first of course, the emotional roller coaster of
doubts, despair, anger and all his fears hit him one after the other once he
goes through this ridiculously funny “hiccup” of one ironic day—Groundhog’s
day. Does Phil Connors’ see his shadow?
Yes he does—the shadow and darkness of his pain and spiritual struggles… Does Phil Connors eventually see the light?
Yes he does!
The profound aspect or power of the film for me comes
when after he commits several failed suicide attempts to “kill” off all he’s
spiritually battling with… he realizes he needs to love. Phil Connors not only has to love himself (as
God wants us to love ourselves) but he realizes that he needs to love and falls
in love with Rita. His entire
personality, his entire being does in fact live into that wonderful image from
the beginning of my sermon: “Let your life be a sermon, a testimony of God’s
love realized and incorporated in your life! Say it, Live it & Give it!”
Saying it to live, living it for God and neighbor by
giving all that you can be in the face of evil, sorrow and darkness is something
I have to gird up for… Others may pay no
heed to what you do or take you seriously but remember, it’s not about
you! Being a disciple of Jesus is a
mission and sometimes those days are going to “hiccup” with impatience,
despair, sadness and pain… But remember
what St. Paul has said about love: “4Love is patient; love is kind;
love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not
insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does
not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Do the world a favor, look inwardly through prayer—are you
where God needs you to be? Who’s winning
the battle?
Let us Pray:
Gracious Lord Jesus,
I must remember always
That You are my mighty Fortress
You do walk with me as I keep on, keeping on
Help me to fully realize and reap that New Nature
You have given as the greatest gift of Your Grace
Help me to faithfully gird my heart to battle against the
Evil One’s Temptations
May I truly Be and Become an instrument of Your Peace,
Love and Hope
In this dark and challenging world.
In Your most precious and healing Name I pray to You
daily—
AMEN
January 31st,
2016; 4th Sunday after the Epiphany; Year C; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon by:
Reverend Nicole A. M. Collins, FODM
Psalm 71:1-11;
Jeremiah 1:4-10, 17-19; 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13 & Luke 4:31-44
Below is a link to this morning's delivery at the Grace Hub Lutheran Orthodox House church service at 8am:
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