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Today’s
readings give us examples of the love and peace God has for us and how we can
receive them. They also show us some things that get in the way of receiving them.
Brothers and
sisters: We, though many, are one Body
in Christ and individually parts of one another. Since we have gifts that
differ according to the grace given to us, let us exercise them: if prophecy,
in proportion to the faith; if ministry, in ministering; if one is a teacher,
in teaching; if one exhorts, in exhortation; if one contributes, in generosity;
if one is over others, with diligence; if one does acts of mercy, with
cheerfulness.
Let love be
sincere; hate what is evil, hold on to what is good; love one another with mutual
affection; anticipate one another in
showing honor. Do not grow slack in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the
Lord. Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer. Contribute to
the needs of the holy ones, exercise hospitality. Bless those who persecute
you, bless and do not curse them. Rejoice
with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Have the same regard for one
another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly.
We can
receive—and deliver—God’s love God’s by fellowshipping with other believers.
The more we deliver God’s love to other believers the more we will experience
God’s love.
O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes
haughty. I busy not myself with great things, nor with things too sublime
for me.
Nay rather, I have stilled and quieted my
soul like a weaned child. Like
a weaned child on its mother’s lap, so is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD, both now and forever.
This sounds like
what is described in Matthew
5:3 & 5, Matthew
6:25-34 and Luke
12:22-33.
Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and
I will give you rest, says the Lord. God wants to give us rest. See
Isaiah
55. We simply have to come to Him and
he will give us that wonderful gift.
One of those
at table with Jesus said to him, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the
Kingdom of God.” He replied to him, “A
man gave a great dinner to which he invited many. When the time for the dinner
came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, ‘Come, everything is
now ready.’ The same
generosity we see in Isaiah 55.
But one by one, they all began to excuse
themselves. The first said to him, ‘I have purchased a field and must go to
examine it; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have
purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them; I ask you,
consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have just married a woman, and
therefore I cannot come.’ This is the same dynamic underlying Matthew
13:7 & 22 and Luke
8:7 & 14.
The servant
went and reported this to his master. Then the master of the house in a rage
commanded his servant, ‘Go out quickly
into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the
crippled, the blind and the lame.’ The poor in spirit per Matthew
5:3. The servant reported, ‘Sir, your orders have been carried out and still
there is room.’
The master
then ordered the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerowsand make people come in that my
home may be filled. For, I tell you,
none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.'" The same dynamic we see in John
15:4 & 6.
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