The Christian Call And Election

2Pe 1:6

Men, because of their unwillingness to make the effort to purify their heart’s eye, are short-sighted, even blind.

But God calls us to His glory and virtue, and we can attain it, first of all, by having faith and by shunning the corrupt passions of the world.

Patience in this case, then, is a link in a chain of qualities that leads from faith to love, a soul, independent of the vagaries of creation, a soul effective and fruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, reflecting God’s glory and goodness.

We need to be reminded of this again and again.

 

Suffering For Rightousness Sake

1Pe 3:20

Just as God is patient with the disobedient, and then allows them to purify their consciouses with the waters of baptism, so we too must be zealous for the good, for righteousness, even in the face of the wrong, in the face of injustice … with gentleness and respect, so that those who insult our good conduct in Christ may be put to shame for their insults.

Patience is maintaining faith, in a spirit of goodness and gentleness, just as God is patient with the disobedient and gives them a chance to purify their hearts.

 

Leap Of Faith

Take the leap of faith, take the risk of doing what you need to do based on your own talents and energy of faith.

Faith must be deeply rooted for the fruits of the Holy Spirit to mature. We explore the depth of our faith, we hit the rock lying below the top soil, then we must break through with the energy of a new level of faith, also fueled by the other fruits of the Holy Spirit … love, peace, joy, kindness, goodness, patience, gentleness, and discipline.

 

Healing The Breach

Having hatred or any feeling or expectation that is at variance with the canons of justice is equivalent to pouring burning sulphur into your heart.

In such a sad state, your prayer cannot be right, you cannot clearly understand the will of God, you burn a hole right through your heart’s eye, you obliterate insight, you burn away energy of the seed that produces the fruits of the Holy Spirit, you burn bare the fact that you lack faith.

But like the ozone layer, if man can curb his greedy lust to waste energy, will heal itself, so, with proper care, your heart’s eye, the soul, the instrument of insight, energized by faith, will heal itself.

 

Signs And Persecutions

Lk 21:19

Patience is deeply-rooted stable faith, even in the face of adversity and injustice, on which basis you will be the master of your soul.

Such souls, then, can reproduce the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

 

Parable Of The Widow And The Judge

Lk 18:1-7

The unjust judge, who had no patience for his fellows, finally did justice for the insistent supplicant.

Imagine what God will do for His chosen ones, for whom He has patience, by virtue of their insistent prayers.

God is patient and He will wait for you to do justice for yourself; then, by virtue of your prayer, He will quickly do justice for you.

Or again, the Lord is patient and does right by us. We have to set our prayers aright, and the Lord will listen to us and make haste to give us what is right.

Right prayer is strongly and deeply rooted in faith. Patience, then, is faithfully waiting for justice, God, waiting for you to set your heart aright, and you likewise for God.

Through the fruits of the Holy Spirit, God and man, in a way, meet each other on equal terms, eyeball to eyeball.

We cannot separate the fruits of the Holy Spirit; they are chained together, as if one molecule.

 

Preliminary Comments on Patience

Parable Of The Unforgiving Servant
Mt 18:26-29

First of all, we must reflect the attributes of God. One of those attributes is patience. One aspect of the patience of God is to be compassionate with men and forgive them their mistakes, forgive them their debts, forgive them their sins.

Looking ahead, knowing what we know about further instances of the teaching on patience, mainly that man must deeply root and endure in the faith in the face of adversity and injustice, it also stands to reason that the Lord is deeply rooted and has faith in His creation, and that He, in some way, suffers injustice (αδικία) when men, of free will, the essence of creation, stray away from His attributes, when, for example, they treat each other with injustice, they fail to be compassionate with one another, they fail to have faith in one another, they fail to forgive one another, they fail to love one another, and, in short, they fail to set their hearts aright.

The penalty for this failure is a sort of prison, ultimately, one of our own making as free-willed creatures.

 

Preliminary Comments On What Is Joy

(Lk 1:14, Lk 2:10, Mt 2:10, Jn 3:29, Mt 13:20, Mk 4:16, Lk 8:13, Mt 13:14, Lk 10:17, Mt 18:12-14, Lk 15:1-7, Mt 25:14-29, Lk 19:11-27, Jn 15:1-17, Jn 16:20-24, Mt 28:8, Lk 24:41, Mt 24;52, 1Jn 1:4, 2Jn 12, 3Jn 1:4, Ja 1:2, Ja 4;9, 1Pe 1:

Joy is returning to the Lord, joy is the obedient insight of the righteous, putting into practice the teachings of God.

Joy is the coming of the savior, announced by the angels, the great Light, joy to the wise, joy to all people of good will. The coming of Jesus – the Light of the world – is the fulfillment of joy.

Joy is receiving the Word and rooting oneself in it, regardless of the vagaries of created life.

Joy is discovering the kingdom of God, letting go of all else, and clinging to it.

Joy is knowing that your name is written in heaven.

Joy is mutual between God, who provided so that He finds souls, and souls, so that they may find Him.

Joy in heaven is when souls that were lost and led astray are found and change their minds, even one by one, and return to the fold, to the community of heaven.

Joy is of the Lord when the soul produces the fruits of the Holy Spirit, the good and faithful soul, according to the grace that God has bestowed upon him.
But the soul that is lazy and fruitless is bad, and this badness will be used to flame the goodness of the good.

Joy is the Word of God that purifies the soul of man who can then produce mature fruit; following the teachings of Jesus is tantamount to loving God and to loving one another.
The joy of Jesus is within us, and through Him our joy can be complete and everlasting.
In contrast, true sorrow is the absence of the Word, the Light, the love of God.
If we seek of God the Word in our lives and in our souls, we will receive it and our joy will be complete.

Great joy is hearing the news, announced by the angels, that Jesus had risen from the dead and would appear to those who follow His teaching.
This joy flames the faith. In the physical absence of Jesus there is the Holy Spirit, and it is a mistake not to have faith.

Complete joy is community with the Father and the Son – the Word of Life – and with each other.

Joy is knowing that our children walk in the ways of the truth, the commands of God, the teaching of Jesus – true love – and complete joy is living together in truth.

Pure, glorified, unspeakable joy is the ongoing in-depth discovery of Christ in the face of various trials which purify the faith as fire, stable and disciplined, rejoicing in our inheritance, the fulfillment of faith, the salvation of our souls.

 

Parable Of The Talents

(Mt 25:14-29)

The good and faithful servants of the Lord produce the fruits of the Holy Spirit, each according to the grace that God has bestowed upon him, and they will enter into the joy of the Lord, into the kingdom of heaven. The bad servants are lazy and fruitless, and their badness - the resources bestowed upon them that they waste - will be used to flame the goodness of the good.

 

Jesus The True Vine

(Jn 15:1-17)

Putting into practice the teachings of Jesus is the way to bear fruit. The Lord will purify those who do so that they bear full fruit, including love and joy, and thereby God is glorified.