Drop to Your Knees

~~~ Ephesians 3:14-21 ~~~ Psalm 33 ~~~ Luke 12:49-53 ~~~

I kneel before the Father,

Today some believe that kneeling doesn't suit our culture.
It is appropriate to use our body when praying, as Paul is doing today.
Paul assumes the posture of prayer...kneeling.

Think of how this posture of kneeling is used during the Mass.
When we kneel before the Lord we freely place
ourselves in a position of surrender.
If you are  kneeling you cannot easily get away.
What is one of the first things
a police officer will have a suspect do?
Often it is to kneel on the ground.
Kneeling places one in a vulnerable position.
We kneel before God to give him praise and to worship him.

...to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self,
and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;

Paul prays for his beloved followers to be strengthened;
not with strong physical muscles, but inner strength.
It is through a greater, deeper, stronger inner self
 that our faith can be nourished.
Our strong faith is the backbone for how
 we come to live out what we believe within our hearts. 

Having strong faith is not an emotional feel good attitude.
Rather it is a gift rooted and grounded in the love God has for us.
The Spirit gives us this inner knowledge to understand
the existence of God's love.

...that you, rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend...

We can never fully understand God
 because then he would no longer be God.
The comprehension of God does not permeate down
through our head to our heart.
The understanding of God begins in our heart
and radiates out to the rest of our body.
What the heart knows is sometimes
 never fully understood by the head.

...to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Accept and believe by way of your
 strengthened faith that the love God has for you
 is incomprehensible.
The fullness of God is his capacity for love.
God is love and this love cannot be measured.
His love can only be realized through
 faith deep within our heart...soul.

The more we love God the more of him we come to know.
The more we know of God's love the more of it we can give away.
Blessed because Paul dropped to his knees
and prayed for us to have greater inner strength.
~~~Peace~~~

Responding Appropriately

~~~ Hosea 6:1-6 ~~~ Psalm 51 ~~~ Luke 18:9-14 ~~~

My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled...

A sacrifice is the act of giving up something
 that you want to keep especially to get or do something else.
A sacrifice is a loss or something you give up,
usually for the sake of a better cause.

We can make sacrifices for many different reasons.
But often we gain something in return for the sacrifice.
Parents routinely make sacrifices so their
children can have a better life.

We sacrifice our selfish ways, our prideful thoughts and actions
so that we may have this closer relationship with God.
We would be nothing without him and yet we find ways to ignore him.
We find ways to close him out of our lives.
It happens before we even realize he is missing.
Do you ever feel as if you have replaced God
with something else in your life?
This exactly what happens when we sin;
we replace God with what we want
 to do instead of listening to him.

For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice,
and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

More than anything else God wants us to love him.
We can make one sacrifice after another,
 but God simply wants us to love him.
The best way to love God more is to get to know him better.
The best way to get to know God better is to spend
more quality time with him.

But the tax collector stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’

The tax collector came to the temple
with his heart already in the state of repentance.
He came, not to brag about who he was or what he had done;
he came to seek God's mercy.
He came to spend more time with God.
He came to learn how to love God more
in response to his mercy.

During Lent there is great emphasis on our being repentant,
but every Mass begins with a penitential rite.
We begin the celebration of his death...
of our salvation with repentance.
We call to mind how God has loved us
and how we have failed to respond. 

This is how we fall into sin,
 we do not respond appropriately to God's love for us.

If we could consistently love God in return as much as he loves us
then how could we step into a life sin?

Perhaps we can never love God enough.
Loving him with our whole mind, body,
and soul may not be possible.

Just maybe loving our neighbor as ourselves
bolsters our ability to love God more.

The more time you spend with God
the better you will be at responding appropriately.

We are Blessed not by what we sacrifice,
but rather by how much we can love.

I invite you to take time this weekend to consider
how well you have responded to his love.
For it is love that he desires above all.
Peace.