Clothe yourself with Love Col. 3:14

What does ‘ being filled with God ’ actually look like in real life? Can we recognize such a person filled with God? The reason I am asking is because, to live in this world, is to be subjected to so many pressures of life on a daily basis. It happens that we think that God is not present when we are being pressed on from every side or attacked. But, with growth and understanding, we come to realize that these pressures are in our lives for a reason and for a season. They come to form us; to reform us, to mend and heal us; and they can be uncomfortable, even outright painful. As one of St John's Society monks wrote: " It’s like in Physical Therapy, the practitioner massages; presses and compresses those areas that hurt the most to facilitate healing ." God knows how best to shape us. He is our maker after all. How do we navigate these pressures of life? Do we seek to remove these obstacles that pressure us? Or learn to be comfortable facing them? The words of Paul to Eph

In life we have all kinds of treasure boxes. Some boxes contain beautiful memories and others bad ones. Beautiful memories could be good encouragement words received; successes in life such as graduation, first paycheck, first house, wedding, children. Bad memories could be something in our past that was difficult to get over; or a bad word that deeply affected us; job loss; or loss of a loved one. As we live our lives, we keep adding to these treasure boxes, some of us in helpful ways and others in not so helpful ways. Jesus had sent his disciples in mission, to contribute to people’s treasure boxes in helpful ways. They were back from their mission and were happy to debrief. Jesus invited them to a quiet place for some rest and to recharge. That quietness became short-lived because they met a big crowd on the other side of the lake. Jesus saw them, was moved with pity because they were like sheep without shepherd, so he began to teach them. He did not say: I am tired, what are you d

Painters and builders use plumb lines to keep their work straight. God uses a plumbline in a different way. When God said to the prophet Amos that he was setting a plumb line among his people, he was declaring an end to their attempts to justify their crooked ways. What is interesting, is this human behavior of quickly defending ourselves when something about us is being pointed out for correction. Israelites were no different. God had been patient, longsuffering but this time, God was done. He was not going to put up with a provoking people, so He told his prophet his intentions. The prophet learned that at the bottom of trouble was sin, and he also understood that at the bottom of deliverance was forgiveness of sin, so he prayed for that. I wondered and contemplated on what message could God be sending to us, in our busy postmodern lives. It is true that God also sent a plumbline in our midst: The Bible. Do we have a track record of justifying our behaviors and shenanigans? It’s tou

As I read our Gospel story, I had this impression that Pharisees were following Jesus and his disciples to notice that they were picking grains in the field. Were they on a random fault-finding journey? I wondered: “Let’s see what they do on the Sabbath! They are bound to break the law at some point.” Pharisees always brought to Jesus a number of arguments and grievances; many of which were a tip of the iceberg, a symptom of a much bigger problem underneath. This argument about what’s lawful on the Sabbath was the tip of the iceberg. God created the Sabbath for our benefit, to rest both physically and spiritually. But for Pharisees, the law became more important than the resting part. They believed they were right in what they thought and did, and needed no correction. Jesus sorted the argument but still, where did we go wrong by turning everything into an argument? Unfortunately, when we are so busy winning arguments, we don’t realize we are distracted from everything else that migh

Psalm one begins with: “Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked.” Of course, we wish the circle of all our friends are only good people and thank God that they are not involved in some shady deals, mafia and the like. That’s what I initially understood it to be about. I am sure you just finished scanning all your friends mentally. For full disclosure, I did it too in my mind. I found the meaning behind the counsel of the wicked to be more extensive than I thought. I came to understand that it could simply mean buying into the world’s ways. That made me realize that we always end up with a big mess, when we have become so in love with our own selves instead of God. It is easy for us to slide into the wicked category. None would like to consider themselves wicked! However, we humans, have been nasty to each other, and validated our excuses for doing it. Cain and Abel are our very first example which ended in tragedy. Who will fix this? The United Nations have not

The Passover of the Jews was near. A big deal for Jews! They rehearsed and remembered their divine rescue from Egyptian slavery, a day that is ingrained in the minds of the children of Israel. As it was customary, Jesus would be in Capernaum often teaching about the Kingdom of God. After having spent a few days with his mom and brothers, he went to Jerusalem. In the Temple, the idea was that people of God gather; pursuing holiness and purity in front of a Holy God, so that God, would come and vindicate them. Remember they were conquered by Romans, they certainly had many prayer requests asking God to intervene in their lives. As part of the Passover celebrations were the Matzah: A simple meal, made from flour and water without any yeast: a symbol of the meager rations the Jewish slaves had to subsist on during their enslavement, and a reminder of the poverty and hardship they endured. When Jesus got to the temple, it was business as usual for Israel’s leaders. The very reason to come