"Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross." Phillipians 2:5-8
"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Teilhard de Chardin
We try to do a scripture meditation with the kids everyday. We got out of the practice for awhile but want to bring it back. We either do it at dinner or at breakfast. There was a lot of bickering happening at breakfast so I decided to break in with the devotion for the day. For me, stopping them, making them sit down, be silent for a moment and then having prayer - well it works better than counting to 10 or sending them to their rooms. This morning the devotion was on making choices, good or bad. If you make a bad choice tell God you are sorry and God will forgive you and will always love you, no matter the choice. My almost 8 year old son said "I don't believe that, God can't be with you when you are bad." My other son broke in with "well He always loves me!".
See how kids can open up the dialogue! At our essence who are we? And how can we be in relationship with God our Creator, Jesus our Redeemer and empty ourselves so that the Holy Spirit can work through us? God is Love and God can not be anything but Love and cannot abide where there is no love. Interesting. It reminds me of a magnet. God is one magnet we are another - do we gather God within us or do we repel him away. The choice is ours. We have the freedom to be self-righteous or God bearers. A lot of people think Christianity is for the simple-minded, the weak-willed. Is it? Have those same people really seen the Cross? In my opinion self-righteous is easy. In this world living an ego-driven life is easy, and this world is so good at distracting us from who we really are that it can be even easier. So what if living for Self makes you sad, lonely or depressed, anxious, fearful or bitter - take a pill, take a drug, take a drink, take a stab at someone else by gossiping or ridiculing or even bullying, be judgmental to build yourself up, be aggressive to tear them down. Really it is easy, it is even simple. I have met people who live with their master Bitter and Anger, who expect nothing more from themselves than human emotion.
But I would want to ask them if they ever considered they are not their emotions, they are not their labels, they are not their possessions. I wonder if they ever considered they are spiritual beings created by the thought and Word of the Creator of all. And the Creator is Love, constantly searching out for Love, healing the broken, spreading the Light ever farther to break the darkness.
What I say to my son is this: You can not be in right relationship with God when you make sinful choices, you can not even be in right relationship with your own soul. However, God always Loves you, always. And God is waiting for you to choose to make the wrong choice right and hopeful that you will make better choices as you move forward. Love is never the issue. You are wonderfully created by Love. But you have to be willing to empty yourself, to receive Love and then to be Love.
Can you empty yourself? Can you be the vessel? Do you want to? "For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son." For God so loved YOU he gave his self up to become you so that he might die for you so that he might save you! The question is not does God love you but rather do you want to be loved? Because accepting God's love changes who you are and you can never go back. Once you know this Love you can't forget it, even if you try to walk away from it and pretend you didn't or can't have it. Love created you to Love and always desires a relationship.
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