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Is Holiness Still Possible?
Devotional Thought of the Day
13 “You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it. 14 “You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead it is put on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house. 16 In the same way your light must shine before people, be so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:13-16 (TEV)
Almost all those who have hitherto treated of devotion have had the instruction of persons wholly retired from the world in view, or have taught a kind of devotion leading to this absolute retirement: whereas my intention is to instruct such as live in towns, in households, or in courts, and who, by their condition, are obliged to lead, as to the exterior, an ordinary life, and who frequently, under the pretext of a pretended impossibility, will not even think of undertaking a devout life, believing, that as no animal dares to taste the seed of the herb called Palma Christi, so no man ought to aspire to the palm of Christian piety so long as he lives in the turmoil of worldly affairs. (1)
As I read the quote in blue, the thought resonated with me. I had found some interesting quotes from this book in the past, so I added ti to my devotional reading for the year.
Some many devotional writings are written to either people who spend hours a day in meditation and reflection, or they are 200 words or less that are to be read while driving one’s morning coffee, or while sitting at traffic lights as we hurry from place to place. The latter pacify our spiritual hunger,satisfying it, or perhaps numbing it.
Yes we say, I’ve done my devotions, as if to check them off a list, and not be concerned about God in the midst of a broken life. We’ve been taught that the prayers of those who shut themselves away are not as noble as those that live them out, but how many of us do? Even a generation after Luther, de Sales wrote that many think leading a holy and devout life to be impossible within the turmoil of worldly affairs.
So Francis de Sales wrote a book, very much along the lines of how I desire. There has to be a way to turn devotion from a duty into a life. To realize that devotion is a combination of adoration (being in awe of God’s love ) and mercy- showing that love to all we encounter. it is a way of life, a way of walking with God where we allow Him to transform us into His image.
It is the place where God is incarnate, so incarnate, so real that our hearts, souls, minds and strength resonate with love for Him, because we are sure we are loved. It is a place where joy overwhelms suffering or pain. It is a life set apart to God, for God has set Himself apart to us.
He is our God, we are His people, and we are more aware of this than not.
Being devoted to God, Holiness, Sanctification, living the baptized life, this is possible. Even in the middle of 2016, and as we approach 2017.
St Paul describes it this way
18 All of us, then, reflect the glory of the Lord with uncovered faces; and that same glory, coming from the Lord, who is the Spirit, transforms us into his likeness in an ever greater degree of glory. 2 Corinthians 3:18 (TEV)
Lord have mercy upon us sinners, and help us to see the Spirit’s work in our lives. AMEN!
(1) Francis de Sales, Saint. An Introduction to the Devout Life. Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, 1885. Print.
It’s Time to Stop Hiding Behind Our Sinful Nature
Discussion Thought of the Day:
22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.1 So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. 2 And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. 3 The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. 4 He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit. Romans 7:22-25, 8:1-4 (NLT)
4 Don’t say, “That’s the way I am—it’s my character.” It’s your lack of character. Esto vir!—Be a man!
125 Since faith brings the Holy Spirit and produces a new life in our hearts, it must also produce spiritual impulses in our hearts. What these impulses are, the prophet shows when he says (Jer. 31:33), “I will put my law upon their hearts.” After we have been justified and regenerated by faith, therefore, we begin to fear and love God, to pray and expect help from him, to thank and praise him, and to submit to him in our afflictions. Then we also begin to love our neighbor because our hearts have spiritual and holy impulses.
“Pastor, I can’t help it, I am just a poor, poor sinner.”
That response is a conditioned response, it is what pastors and priests have taught people to say. It is the response to sin of a generation where the sacraments have been diminished. Where absolution is not really heard and understood in the heart and the mind.
But what it does pick up on, is the law that convicts it, the passages that say, “no one is good”, “all have sinned”, and a focus that never is taken off of the doctrine of justification. People have heard all about, they know what it is, well as far as we can’t save ourselves, we are dead in sin and God delivers us. But they don’t hear the so what – how this absolution, how this declaration that we are righteous changes our lives.
With on the “what”, people (and I include pastors and priests as people – we are really) will make the what the end of the story. We still sin, God still forgives. We aren’t perfect, we’re just forgiven, and people will turn that into permission to keep on sinning.
We believe that works can’t save us, we know that nothing we do merits salvation, and we stop (and encourage people to stop ) there. That’s enough, trust in God and you will be saved people believe.
When we allow this, o what a great disserve we do! It would be like telling a convict the charges against them are overturned, but not unlocking their cell door, not removing the handcuffs, nor giving them clothes that identified them as something other. We have to share the complete gospel, all of the mercy, reveal to them the wonder of His love.
They’ve been not only declared righteous, but the Holy Spirit dwells in them, making them holy. sanctifying them, empowering them to live the baptized, repentant (transformed ) life. Our people don’t need to live in secret, hiding behind their sin or their propensity to sin. They can be encouraged to live in the freedom that Christ has given them.
That is what the third quote, from the Lutheran Confessions, is telling us. That the Spirit creating life in our hearts, is creating the impulses to do that which isn’t sin, impulses to love God, impulses to love our neighbor, impulses to trust Him more and more, and because we trust Him we are driven to reach our and serve those around us, meeting needs from physical to emotional to spiritual.
This is how Paul, distraught over his sin, finally comes to the realization (and needed to remember it daily) that justified, we can set aside that sin, and follow the Spirit. Does that mean we won’t sin on occasion? No, but it changes what drives us, what impulses we want to follow -and as time goes by, as we explore the depth of God’s love revealed in Christ, those impulses bring us great joy.
This is what St. Josemaria talks about when he challenges us to be men, not those who hide behind the weakness of character, who justify sin by saying that is who they are.
It is a challenge to live life as God intended, walking with Him, focused on Him, but even when we fail, He has, He is the answer. The Christian life is knowing this and living in light of it.
Heavenly Father, have mercy on us, your children!
AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way (Kindle Locations 177-178). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Tappert, Theodore G., ed. The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959. Print.Apology of the Augsburg Confession Article IV
A True Test of Faith: Prayer
Devotional Thought of the Day:
2 Open the gates to all who are righteous; allow the faithful to enter. 3 You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! Isaiah 26:2-3 (NLT)
1 I cry out to the LORD; I plead for the LORD’s mercy. 2 I pour out my complaints before him and tell him all my troubles. 3 When I am overwhelmed, you alone know the way I should turn. Psalm 142:1-3 (NLT)
990 Sanctity consists precisely in this: in struggling to be faithful throughout your life and in accepting joyfully the Will of God at the hour of death.
As I read the passages from Isaiah and Psalms that I placed at the beginning of this devotion, I wonder again about my faithfulness.
Not from the point of not sinning and doing everything right. It is another issue of faithfulness.
I have often found it hard to pour out my complaints, I find it hard to give Him all my troubles. I don’t’ turn to God at first, when troubles overtake me. There are ways we avoid this.
One may bottle it up, just shove it own inside until the day when we just sob uncontrollably. Our bodies are purging our soul of bottled up grief or anger, or sorrow, any and every.
Another option is to vent but in an inappropriate way. Venting looking for some affirmation; someone to recognize our heroic endurance, our suffering under injustice, the strength of character that it takes to endure.
Please hear me, I am not saying we shouldn’t look for support from other brothers and sisters who know God’s love. But I am saying that we can go to others for affirmation that would glorify us, even if that glory is someone noting our ability to survive the struggle. If we are blessed, our friends won’t allow us to throw a pity party. Instead, they will guide us to the cross, and the mercy and grace that will heal us.
What is faithfulness? St. Josemaria talks of it as accepting the Will of God joyfully – even at the hour of death. It is with Isaiah knowing that God keeps us in perfect peace, and we trust Him to keep that promise, and look to Him to do it!
That faithfulness is crying out to God like Jeremiah, (see Jeremiah 20:7) when we feel like life isn’t fair. Or even if it is fair when we feel overwhelmed by it. When we don’t hesitate to plead for Hi mercy, to pray with both the bluntness of sharing our despair, and trusting God, and only God, to make a difference.
That is the faithfulness we need to develop. The faithfulness that results in holding nothing back from the God, who loves US. To give Him our life, not just our willingness to serve Him wherever He leads, but to give him our shattered hearts, our bruised and broken souls. We need to entrust to Him the things that we hate to face in our lives.
That is faithfulness; the prayer of the broken and needy. The prayer of a child, calling out to his Father to rescue them from the darkness.
The prayer so easily said…but one that echoes to the deepest part of us, and finds that even there, God is with us.
The Prayer: Lord, have mercy on me….
Let us pray…
(1) Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 3490-3491). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
