Jesus said, “What is the Kingdom
of God like? To what can I compare
it? IT is like a mustard seed that a man
took and planted in the garden. When it
was fully grown, it became a large bush and the birds of the sky dwelt in its
branches.”
Yesterday, I received a card from a couple who have been trying hard
and praying hard to have a baby for some time now. It finally happened. The card read: “It’s a
baby!” At first it struck me as odd
that it didn’t read “It’s a girl” or “It’s a boy.” But after a while, I finally got it. They could care less what sex their child
was. They were just happy to have a
baby.
Babies are cute. People love to
be around them. It doesn’t matter what
they do in front of us or to us. They can burp in our face. They can poop
in our arms. They can throw up all over
our shirt. It doesn’t matter what they
do. Nothing they say or do could ever wipe away
the joy in our heart or the smile from our face.
But when babies grow up, they’re not so cute. Why is that?
Why do kids become so ugly? It has nothing to do with their physical size or physical appearance. it has
everything to do with their selfishness.
When the Lord describes the Kingdom of God as being the size of a
mustard seed, what he is describing is not so much its physical dimensions but
rather its spiritual conditions. The
reason why the Kingdom of God is so small and so great is because God makes
himself small so as to be great. It is
the reason why the Lord said: If you wish to be great, you must make
yourself small.
Babies get everything they need and want and even more. Why?
Because they ask for nothing. I
keep telling our school kids that if they want to get more from their parents
they need to stop asking for more.
I know some parents who are very "concerned" about their kids because they never
ask for anything. So what do they
do? They keep giving them more and
more. Their kids know the secret. One student never asked for a car and got a car. One student never demanded more freedom and got more freedom.
Interested?
Interested?
The rule is simple: If you want
to be loved, then start loving. If you
want to be great, then start serving. If you want to receive, then stop asking and start giving.
If you think about it, the Lord does not demand much from us, except to
love Him and to love our neighbor. Oh, I
forgot. He also asks us to give Him
our sins so that He can give us His love.
Be subordinate. In his
letter to the Ephesians (Eph 5:21-33), St. Paul challenges Church leaders to be “subordinate to Christ”. He goes one step further and challenges members of the Church to be “subordinate
to one another”. He then demands
wives take a leap of faith by being “subordinate to their husbands
in everything.” But like everything
St. Paul writes, he demands that we do what we do just like Christ did for us. It is not enough to love. We need to love as Christ loves us.
The Church is a “sacrament” of the Body of Christ. Christians are a “sacrament” of Christ’s
continual presence in the world.
Husbands are a sacrament of Christ’s unconditional love and sacrifice
for His bride (the Church).
There is no demanding in any
of these relationships, only
giving of oneself and dying to self.
These are the conditions that make all relationships possible, powerful, beautiful, amazing and
ever young and new… like a new born baby.
Like a child, the Kingdom of God will grow from a small mustard seed to a burning bush, but only if it remains forever
young and humble of heart.
Yeap Yeap Yeap! Subordination is not fun but it is humbling and challenging and definitely forces us to grow into more mature Christians. It builds up endurance and patience to see how God is working in our heart specially when we must endure an unfair situation.
ReplyDelete"There is no demanding in any of these relationships, only giving of oneself and dying to self." - A constant sacrifice of love!
These are the conditions that make all relationships possible, powerful, beautiful, amazing and ever young and new… like a new born baby- I strongly agree,I will work on the relationship between God and I.Before I ever start loving a man again. That will take a very long time.Like my Friends tell me " You are still young,You have your whole life ahead of you" and My response is LOL!!!
ReplyDeleteGod Bless u My Dear Father :)
There is no demanding in any of these relationships, only giving of oneself and dying to self. These are the conditions that make all relationships possible, powerful, beautiful, amazing and ever young and new… like a new born baby.
ReplyDeleteThis is only possible if both persons understand that this is the starting point...no demanding in any relationship! Our culture is so weak in communication that we can only ‘think’ of what the other is thinking instead of actually sitting down and having a deep discussion of what is really at the basis of the relationship. We are so superficial!! As you say, are we afraid? embarrassed to discuss our true thoughts? I know I am in many different circumstances. We are so busy, so exhausted that we no longer have the energy to carry on the many different relationships we want to give to another, but we just don’t understand the intentions of the other, thus we don’t even want to work on it. It’s so much easier to give up and give ourselves a pat on the back for ‘trying’. What a cop-out! Anyway, every single person I encounter is a face of Jesus. This is the basis of how I ‘try’ to see everyone. I realize, with a deep conviction, that there are no coincidences in life. God plans my encounters. God plans my routes. God counts every hair on my head. I am not in control. I truly do not understand why He continues to love me. I am in awe. I just want to learn what He is trying to tell me in each encounter.