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prismaticbleedSlept in until 10. Body was begging for it.
Got bad stomach cramping upon drinking Powerade again???
No strength to bike until it eased up. Standing in front of heater.
Prayers on bike as soon as we felt better. Offering everything up for Israel, and making extra devoted effort.
Mental prayer today, not spoken-- SAYING them TURNS OFF THE IMAGINATION unless we have music on!! And saying them ALSO TYPICALLY CUTS OFF EMOTION. They become automated & socialized.
Almost forgot about ONLINE MASS today! Went to our buddies in Coquitlam.
Then made brave decision to pray the Rosary BEFORE eating, because afterwards we cannot feel the emotions.
WEEPING over Sorrowful Mysteries, thanks to new soundtrack= Peter Gregson. It hit SO HARD.
BK prep = TWO bags of broccoli were bad??
Eggs turned out well though despite huge bubble. Still don't know why that happens. Might just be pan size vs jet size.
Chest feels very funny, gotta eat son!!!
Mom called, anime talk with Mike
Workers in the hall being super noisy. Offering that up too.
Evening =
They have the HEATERS ON and it is SO WARM I am being forced to sleep in A TANK TOP & BOYSHORTS. This is hilarious.
Gonna hit the 30s by Monday son!! Can't wait for everything outside to get ORANGE & FOGGY
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VOTD 2 Cor 9:8 = fitting for Israel relief efforts! "God blesses you so you can be a blessing to others." BUT we can only receive His literally overabundant blessings BY NOT STOPPING THE FLOW. We must GENEROUSLY GIVE in order TO receive the blessings we are TO give! Hoarding, hiding, competing, etc. ALL spring from FEAR OF LACK/LOSS and betray a REAL LACK OF TRUST IN GOD, Who will ALWAYS provide for our needs AND our giving, IF we trust Him enough TO RELY ON HIM FOR THAT PROVISION.
I can, with honest shocked gratitude, attest to this. God legit works "numberless small miracles" for us when we surrender control into His Hands-- and He sincerely cares about even our tiniest needs, the ones we tend to deny or reject even in ourselves. But God LOVES to give. God loves to shower people with blessings & grace. We just have to RESPOND IN KIND!! We are His children, after all-- it is our joy, too, to imitate His largesse as He both enables & teaches us to, and to therefore glorify Him in all circumstances.
ALSO, UNEXPECTED APPLICATION OF THIS TRUTH in the daily questions =
"What do you need God to give you today? 1) Provision in my finances. 2) Physical or mental healing. 3) Patience in difficult circumstances."
ALL OF THOSE THINGS STILL COUNT???? Honestly I always just applied this verse to finances & basic needs, like food & shelter! I actually NEVER thought that "God will provide for" my EMOTIONAL needs, or my PSYCHOLOGICAL needs... probably because I consistently deny and reject those needs. No wonder I never even realized that God CAN and apparently WILL provide for them, as scandalous a claim as that sounds. But it's right there in Scripture. If I have a need, God IS able to meet it in abundance.
KVOTD actually tied in, with Philippians 4:6-7. That's HOW we can better trust God, in order TO unconditionally rely on His Providence... despite all trying circumstances.
Generosity and Gratitude go hand in hand, really. So do Joy and Peace.
Because they are EXACTLY WHAT GOD IS CHALLENGING ME WITH IN LIFE RIGHT NOW.
I am ashamed to admit, in reading the VOTD reflection, that I'm actually not actively being generous. I DON'T think about what resources I have and how I can use them TO BLESS OTHERS. I'm too poverty-minded and stingy, too scared of not having enough to survive if I do give. Deep down part of be obviously DOESN'T trust God to provide... or worse, trusts that His provision IS letting me starve or go bankrupt. That's that twisted "genie" falsehood again.
But on another note... I wasn't aware that I HAD other resources than money. That is perhaps even MORE shameful-- because it shows that I didn't even consider things like time and talent TO be blessings gifted to me TO BLESS OTHERS. What the heck am I even doing?? How far has my mind fallen??
So I needed this, desperately.
As for the KVOTD... I need to stop worrying about "not having enough" of ANYTHING, and instead PRAY ABOUT IT... with THANKSGIVING.
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Universalis =
ISAIAH 55 TIES DIRECTLY INTO JOHN 12:24 WITH THE GRAIN???
"What I’m about to tell you is true. Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only one seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."
"Thus says the Lord: ‘As the rain and the snow come down from the heavens and do not return without watering the earth, making it yield and giving growth to provide seed for the sower and bread for the eating, so the Word that goes from my mouth does not return to me empty, without carrying out My Will and succeeding in what it was sent to do.’"
THAT IS EXPLICITLY REFERENCING JESUS'S LIFE, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION. That is amazing.
First: Jesus IS the WATER OF LIFE!!! He is literally the water that "comes down from heaven."
Second: it "does not return WITHOUT watering the earth." This implies His ASCENSION.
Third: Jesus came to earth TO "WATER IT," which means GIVING IT LIFE, and THE CAPACITY TO LIVE. Without sustained watering, everything will dry up again.
Fourth: This giving of Life-- of Himself-- makes the earth YIELD before it CAN give growth!!! If we do not humble ourselves and soften our hearts TO receive Him, that "Living water" won't be able to soak in.
Fifth: THE SEED ONLY GROWS BECAUSE IT RECEIVED THE LIVING WATER.
Sixth: This growth produces MORE SEED, but it is meant FOR THE SOWER!! It doesn't just sit there and "serve itself" in idleness!! Its VERY EXISTENCE is INTENDED TO SERVE.
Seventh: This seed, once harvested by the sower, IS USED TO MAKE BREAD FOR EATING.
Eighth: Jesus's mission was guaranteed to succeed even from His birth. His very coming to earth, like the rain, INEVITABLY brought Life to the people of earth.
Ninth: Jesus does not return to heaven "empty." He BRINGS US WITH HIM. Even immediately after His Death, He harrowed hades and brought all those ancient righteous souls up to heaven with Him before HE even went in Himself!
Tenth: Jesus's entire existence "carries out God's Will" and He unfailingly "does what He was sent to do"... which is, simply and stunningly, to give us HIS Life and thus forever rescue us from death. He was sent here TO save us. Nothing more, nothing less. Let THAT soak in.
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Online=
"A scepter symbolized a ruler’s absolute power and authority over a tribe or nation... [and] can be used as weapons. Scepters symbolized the irresistible civic and military power that a ruler had at his command. [But] worldly authority, symbolized by the scepter, is temporary, and earthly kings often find their scepters slipping out of their grasp. But the scepter wielded by the Messiah, Jesus Christ, will never be lost, stolen, or set aside. When He establishes His Kingdom on earth, it will be one of perfect justice: “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your Kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness”."
Oh man THAT'S what it means!! The very concept of Justice ITSELF is Christ's "scepter"-- wherever it exists and is so honestly wrought, CHRIST'S KINGDOM REIGNS. And when His Kingdom is fully established among men at His Return, it CANNOT fall, for His Power and Authority IS LITERALLY THOSE VERY THINGS THEMSELVES. I don't know how else to phrase that. He IS Power and Authority, Justice and Righteousness. He cannot lose what He IS-- and those virtues ARE DEFINED BY HIM! He is their Source and Summit, just as He is of Life itself, because He IS GOD.
But yeah. What hit me hard is that Christ's power is absolute because He literally IS Justice. His Kingdom power, His "scepter," is HIMSELF. It isn't external or dependent in any way.
Lastly... consider the Crowning with Thorns. They mocked His Kingship by implying that His power & authority, His "scepter," was a bruised reed-- useless, frail, and poor-- and they even used it to hit Him on His thorn-crowned Head. Little did they know the mysteriously honorable Truth they proclaimed even in their irreverence! Jesus was, in His very Passion, being "hit by" God's Own Justice... BY the "bruised reed," the symbol of civic & military power. On earth, His Kingship DID appear impotent, but those very people who refused to respect Him would, through their very insolence & offense, serve to further His Divine purposes. His Cross WAS His Throne. His weakness WAS His Power. His humility WAS His Authority. And the thorns He wore, those very symbols of the fruitless curse of Adam's children, became His real crown, as He became the Fruit of Life that would lift that curse and free humankind from death forever... but only by taking every thorn of it onto Himself first.
When the Roman soldiers pretended to worship Him, dressed so piteously, they had no idea that their very Gentile race was soon destined to become the first proof of His TRUE Kingship over all men... no matter how broken, bruised, and useless such an "army" might appear, no matter how it had once willingly hurt Him. Christ still took them into His Kingdom, giving them a holy purpose and true dignity they would never have had otherwise.
Christ's scepter is Justice itself, wielded from the Cross.
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Continuing Clarke from verse 32.
Man but this fellow is SO EDUCATED; He has so far in this chapter referenced the Bhagavad Gita, the Iliad, the Jahangirnama, and he frequently refers to the Jewish Talmud & Mishnah & Targums, classic poets such as Virgil & Lucan, as well as several other commentators, translations, and historians. HOW MUCH DID THIS MAN READ, that is phenomenal. I'm both impressed and inspired by the sheer wealth of knowledge and wisdom his pious works both express and evince.
All right let me just say that, without quoting huge text walls, Clarke just used several historical references to effectively call both prayer & faith a "golden chain of justice," by which heaven is bound to earth in communication between the "just & most merciful God" and poor sin-oppressed men... a chain by which "all men are drawn to Himself," via the efficacious merit of THE CROSS. "O Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come" (Psalms 65:2)... "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Myself" (John 12:32).
YOU SEE THE IMMENSELY BEAUTIFUL ELEGANCE this man is able to point out to us, thanks to his blessings of education!! May the God he honored by so sharing it bless his soul in eternity, for all the glory he still gives to God by the testimony of his faithful works!
"the Jews called every part of the sacred writings by the name, The Law..."
If I may, this reminds me of how God the Father’s "commandment" to Jesus was basically His ENTIRE ministry, because that "commandment" was eternal Life. It was "one thing," yet such a perfectly great and gloriously illinitable thing that it naturally and necessarily expanded into every word and action of Christ’s Incarnation. And since Christ IS the Word, by Whom Scripture was inspired & spoken, and since His Law is now, as it was then, to unconditionally love God and to selflessly love neighbor for His sake... well, it wouldn't surprise me if therefore ALL of Scripture WAS that Law of Christ, in one way or another. If nothing else, consider that God IS Truth and everything He speaks is therefore Truth; if He Who created all things with His Word alone, spoke every word of the sacred writings... then yeah, I'd call them a "Law" too. Whatever God says, IS.
"There was no part of the law nor of the Scripture that said the Messiah should not die; but there are several passages that say as expressly as they can that Christ must die, and die for the sin of the world too. But as there were [also] several passages that spoke of the perpetuity of His reign, they probably [overruled] the one with the other, and thus drew the conclusion, "The Messiah cannot die; for the Scripture hath said, his throne, kingdom, and reign shall be eternal." [But the two truths need not be mutually exclusive.]"
Let me jump in at this point to say that I never considered the omissions in Scripture as vital as the actual inclusions-- nor how the two would inevitably speak to each other in truth! Scripture does not "have to" explicitly state anything on our behalf; God is under no obligation to reveal ANY of His Thoughts to us, let alone as many as He has. But He WILL and DOES reveal exactly what we need to know for our good and His glory... and what He doesn't reveal serves those same purposes.
I think this is a good place to start with apologetics? I say this as an ignorant uneducated layperson with no credentials whatsoever. I simply realize that many anti-Gospel voices in the secular-- AND Christian!-- world, like to point fingers and exclaim, "well God DIDN'T say anything outright on this specific topic!" Maybe not, true, but what DID He say on other things? God is not ignorant of reality, especially not of human experience-- since His WHOLE PLAN OF SALVATION is for our sakes. Just because He didn't explicitly say something in Scripture doesn't mean the answer isn't there. This prophecy is the perfect example. We know what wasn't said, but we ALSO know what was said, and the two ALWAYS interplay. Maybe they're in different books, written in different eras, said in different contexts than what you would expect or look for. But I ASSURE you, IF YOU TRULY SEEK THE TRUTH, and are not just cherrypicking an argument in your favor, then GOD WILL REVEAL IT TO YOU, WHEN YOU ARE READY TO RECEIVE IT. He won't casually drop it into your lap. You must show yourself worthy, willing, and able TO receive before you will get your answer. Your heart, mind, eyes, and ears must be proved open; otherwise, God can speak all He wants and you will be deaf, dumb, and numb to it... You must be tried and found sufficiently trustworthy, faithful, honest, and pure; otherwise that Truth you seek will scald and condemn and even harden you as you grasp at it irreverently.
In short: 2 Timothy 3:16. "Every Scripture passage is inspired by God. All of them are useful for teaching, pointing out errors, correcting people, and training them for a life that has God's approval." Proverbs 26:12 too: "Do you see a man who is wise in his own opinion? There's more hope for a fool than for him."
But even God's silence speaks.
I'm rambling now. I've said what I could on this offshoot thought.
"Ye have a good part of your journey yet to go: ye cannot travel safely but in the daylight - that light is almost gone - run, that the darkness overtake you not, or in it ye shall stumble, fall, and perish! Reader, is thy journey near an end? There may be but a very little time remaining to thee. O, run, fly to Christ, lest the darkness of death overtake thee, before thy soul have found redemption in His Blood!"
This feels directly relevant with wars on the news right now.
...
But... that one word hits like a bullet. "Run." Man. We always talk about "walking with Christ," but... is it now time to run? Is the darkness so near, with so much road yet ahead? How would we think of that properly, in a current context?
...
"Let the light, the Truth of Christ, so dwell in and work by you that ye may be all light in the Lord: that as truly as a child is the produce of his own parent, and partakes of his nature, so ye may be children of the light, having nothing in you but [Christ's] truth and righteousness."
Again, simple truths that you'd think would be obvious, but that never occurred to me.
First: Our new lives are produced by Christ, in His Death, like a maiden "dies" in childbirth to become a mother, if I may be so bold to compare. The very substance of our new lives comes directly from Him, by ALL the work of love & grace He has BEEN doing for us in endless time leading up to our "birth" as Christians. Also... the Cross is intimately joined to the EUCHARIST, by which Christ STILL feeds us His children WITH HIMSELF.
Second: Children are "images of their parents" even before their upbringing, in BOTH appearance and personality, due to inherited genetics. What Christ infuses into us, through His Self-giving, is what He IS-- Truth and Righteousness. They are not incidental qualities; they ARE Christ, or rather, He IS virtue itself. Without Him, we cannot be virtuous.
Third: Christ calls us to be "children of light," which means we must be born not just of Him (by the Cross), but by His Truth-- His Self-- LIVING in us. As point 2 illustrates, if we truly are born of Him, then He must be IN us; and if He is in us, Who IS Life and virtue Himself, not just some impersonal force or passive influence, then in a wonderful paradox, we His children are also His Tabernacles. He LITERALLY lives IN us, as active Truth. His very Presence is what works that Truth through us, by His Spirit. Yet we do not lose our individuality, as different as I personally find that to accept & grasp. When we open our hearts in faith to believe Christ's Truth, then by nature of Truth, we let Christ as God into us, by means of the Holy Spirit. But He does not "take over" or "override our will, our consciousness, or our personhood, any more than a child's genetic parentage overrules their own equally innate & unique character-- it simply forms a sort of foundation or canvas on which the child's personality expresses itself & works within. It will never be unbound from those inherent predispositions, but it will never be ruled by them either, unless it chooses to surrender to their influence and actively adopt their traits as its own. So too with the Spirit-- although He is a Person, a REAL Person, not an echo of one, as our literal human parents are in our DNA. No, the Holy Spirit-- carrying the light of Christ’s Truth-- is with us in tandem, as a unity of persons, as a cooperation, as a relationship. He never forces, He only guides, teaches, warns, inspires, corrects, consoles, encourages... He is our Advocate and Friend, never a tyrant.
But the point is this: we become children of light by letting our nature be redefined by the light of Truth, the Life of Christ, instead of by our mortal ancestry and spiritually inherited falsehoods.
...
...
Rambling. I get so far and lose the train. I Apologize. God forgive me.
I can feel it, but words have failed. I've used too many.
"Christ withdrew from them, and went to Bethany, as was His custom a little before His crucifixion; and concealed Himself there during the night, and taught publicly every day in the temple. It was in the night season that they endeavoured to seize upon Him, in the absence of the multitude."
Well isn't THAT shockingly relevant to headspace.
During the day, Christ "teaches us" in the Temple-- in the Mass we attend, in the Church teachings we study, and in the Tabernacle of our bodily life (scandalous but true). But at night... He doesn't disappear, He just leaves the public eye and goes into the house of His friends. At night... that's when we talk to Him. That's when we rest with Him. That's when we can speak to Him, one on one, as an individual; heart to Heart, not just another face in the crowd.
But... sometimes, there is a night when we aren't at home. Sometimes, we are missing, and Christ is alone, with no doors open to Him. That's when the "multitude is missing." That's when Christ-- the Light, the Truth-- is "in danger" of being "seized" by the enemy in the shadows, who waited for this "night season" to pounce.
And yet, even then... Christ is in control. REMEMBER THAT. He is never caught off guard. He is never helpless. He knows that even if this night ends in a Crucifixion, even then He will be all the more victoriously glorified, and Light WILL triumph over darkness... and He will return to us, as the dawn itself, when the night is over.
Do we have faith in that? When we find ourselves agonizing in the Garden, as it were, do we recognize Him beside us even then? Do we were with Him; do we watch and pray?
...The point is, remember that last line. The night is only dangerous in the absence of the multitude. Don't betray your Lord by slicing your heart down to one solitary figure. When the night falls, don't get stuck outside. Stay in the house, stay together, and stay with Jesus.
"Though the miracles were wrought for this very purpose: that they might believe in Christ, and escape the coming wrath, and every evidence was given that Jesus was the Messiah-- yet they did not believe; but they were blinded by their passions, and obstinately hardened their hearts against the truth."
I had to Google this, because that's a fatal response we must avoid, and I found this:
"Recently I chatted with a passionate success-driven businessperson that’s blinded by passion. He consistently ignores obvious truths in order to continue holding to false beliefs. During our conversation, I simply repeated his own assessments of the situation. Upon hearing his own assessments, he rejected them. His replies consistently began with, “Yes but…” and “Not really.”... it’s hard to reason with a person that’s filled with the emotion of passionate vision. Passion may close the mind."
Applying that here... the unbelieving Jews of Jesus's time were blinded by "passions"-- powerful emotions-- such as religious zeal, political fervor, and moral pride. They felt these things like fire, and they were fueled by them so much that they refused the Water of Life to have an effect; it would douse everything they had been living for. They didn't realize that once those harmful flames were quenched, the Spirit would baptize them in an eternal holy Fire that would never be put out... if we gave ourselves to be burned like that ancient bush.
...
What stuns me is the blindness of the passion-- what caused that businessman to reject his own thoughts solely because he didn't recognize them in another person's words. He was self-obsessed to the point of self-destruction.
...
It's astounding to consider that all of Jesus's miracles were meant to bring people to faith in Him, and so to faith in God. THAT'S IT. Yes, they were miracles of great healing and charity, but that wasn't their ultimate point! The point was FOR that evident goodness TO point the witnesses TO GOD, Who alone is Good, and Who therefore alone had the ability TO do such miracles.
...
Why did their passions blind them to that??
