Thoughts which call me closer to Jesus, and to the Cross..

43 “A good tree does not produce bad fruit, nor does a bad tree produce good fruit. 44 Each tree is known by its own fruit. People don’t gather figs from thornbushes, and they don’t get grapes from bushes. 45 Good people bring good things out of the good they stored in their hearts. But evil people bring evil things out of the evil they stored in their hearts. People speak the things that are in their hearts.  Luke 6:43-45 NCV

LORD Jesus Christ, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter my sinful heart; yet, Thou deignest to recognize my great poverty and need. Therefore, I fervently desire Thy presence, to nourish, comfort, and strengthen my poor soul. Speak Thy word to my soul and it shall be well with me. Amen.

‘Remember, man, that thou are dust, and unto dust you shall return. There are implications to be found in this. If man had been fashioned from something that could evaporate, then there would be nothing for him to return to. But a man, even while he is living in the flesh, can return to his constituent element: He does this the moment he is ready to be what God has made him. Dust may not be romantic, but there could be nothing more real..” 

When I read the words of Jesus, like those in red above, I feel diseased, depressed, for I look at some of the ways in which I live, and I don’t see good fruit. If I see any fruit it is at best too sour, to overripe, and usually too rotten–if it exists at all. I am not sure I count myself as evil, but if the judgement has too choices, good or evil…. well the preponderance of evidence is not always favorable.

And think about that, guilt and shame builds. I see myself as wretched and as a failure, (Please don’t argue – this is how I and many others feel with such a passage being read or meditated upon. ANd there is hope to come!)

So Loehe’s prayer is simple – and archaic, but the words are encouraging – and often mirror where I eventually come to, the prayer that God doesn’t belong in one such as me–but He doesn’t care what I think and know. He knows me enough to know I needed the cross, I needed HIs presence, and as I encounter it, and the love He has for a sinner like me–oh how I want it even more.

And then comes Zeller and Hanson, reminding me of the blessing of Ash Wednesday – the idea that we can return to the dust we were before our creation, and God can recreate us, by the same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead. We can exchange that dust and ash for beauty, we become His new masterpiece, we become His…again.

The guilt and shame is removed, and for a moment we glimpse of the God who is ours, whom we are united too in baptism, who we commune with in the Eucharist, who we rise with from death and dust to a new and everlasting life.

Hevenly Father, let us know the weight of our sin, if only for an instant, that we may realize our need for Jesus, and for the healing which You so eagerly work in our lives. We oray this in Jesus name, amen!

Lœhe, William. 1914. Seed-Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians. Translated by H. A. Weller. Chicago: Wartburg Publishing House.

Hubert con Zeller, “The choice of God”, quoted inJohn Hanson, Coached byJosemaria Escriva, (Scepter,NY, 2024), 54