Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Turn within.

I was looking through my Moleskine book and stumbled upon my notes from Sunday School.

"Never forget that you're a child. Turn within to Jesus Christ. Our life is hidden in Christ, so look within your heart. Be available to God. Give your heart to God moment by moment. Remember you're a child. Our minds are full of thoughts, and sometimes the spiritual part of our lives is diminished in our thoughts. We are to pray without ceasing, but this means to be available to God's grace, being available to say, 'God, I can't do this.' There is to be a deeper experience of Christ at hand NO matter what your circumstances. God requires your heart above all else. Endless discussion breeds confusion. All you need is to turn to Jesus within you."

"Just as you couldn't contribute to your initial salvation, so you cannot now. Jesus would have us use our past sins as a basis for humility. Don't look at others as 2nd-rate; you yourself are 2nd-rate. There but for the grace of God go I. Take forgiveness seriously. He is there to forgive you. So, in your failures, Christ is preparing us for future tests in which we will be faithful."

"Don't look to your own resources. In His mercy, He tells us we are nothing. Be unmixed. In the fire, there is life in Christ. All good things are eternal. The fire is God's mercy. God understands the tension; he knows our tension. He is shaping me in my pain. Pain is a vessel. God is bringing pain in to make us pure and unmixed. After the fire what remains is eternal."

in each sister and brother

If God comes down to earth through [the] Son made flesh, then we ascend toward heaven through Jesus present in each sister and brother for ...