Proverbs 23:17-18
Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of YHWH all the day. Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.
If you find yourself envying someone, turn it into fear of the Lord, who is able to destroy the soul if He so chooses. In His incomprehensible infinitude He created the soul, which means He could also destroy it. Yet in His incomprehensible, infinite love, He keeps us forever.
Just pondering this gives me a more proper perspective on things and enables me to recognize more clearly what life is all about. The chief end of humankind, the catechism tells us, is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, not self and other people.
Anything in comparison to the presence of God is utter excrement.
John 14:2-3
“There is plenty of room to live in my Father’s house. If that wasn’t the case, I’d have told you, wouldn’t I? I’m going to get a place ready for you! And if I do go and get a place ready for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, so that you can be there, where I am.”
Meditating on this passage a while back I realized that the “place” Jesus was going to prepare was the actual presence of God, not necessarily a physical dwelling. He was going to the cross to make ready this presence that He lived in, available to us.
John 14:22-23
Judas spoke up. (This was the other Judas, not Iscariot.) “Master,” he said, “how will it be that you will show yourself to us and not to the world?”
“If anyone loves me,” Jesus replied, “they will keep my word. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”
What does it take for Jesus to reveal Himself to us?
Love Him.
Really love Him.
Do you actually LOVE Jesus?
If you do, He will show you life in the most vibrant and truthful and insightful of ways…a higher consciousness, if you will.
John 14:26
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, the One the father will send in my name, He will teach you everything. He will bring back to your mind everything I’ve said to you.”
I don’t NEED any human to teach me about God.
See also 1 John 2:26-27 –> I am writing to you about the people who are deceiving you. You have received the anointing from Him; it abides in you and you do not need to have anyone teach you. That anointing from Him teaches you about everything; it is true, it isn’t a lie. So, just as He taught you, abide in Him.
It’s nice to be taught by human teachers, but the Holy Spirit is the best Teacher.
It just takes more concentration to listen to the Holy Spirit. But it is well worth the effort.
John 14:30
“I haven’t got much more to say to you. The ruler of the world is coming. He has nothing to do with me.”
Literally, “He has nothing in me.”
I can only be tempted by what I permit to be in my mind.
Jesus kept His thought life so pure that the devil had nothing to use against Him. Jesus’ desire was so profoundly to be close to His Father, that there were no desires for satan to latch onto to effectively entice Him with.
The closer we get to Christ, the more other desires will fade away. Which is the truest freedom, isn’t it? We always say the Christian life is not abstaining from a buncha things you want but know you shouldn’t have. It is drawing so close to Jesus Christ that you sincerely see desire for anything but Him die away. There is no more appeal.
The worst and most tempting part of sin is that…you like it! You love it, in fact. If you didn’t, it would not be a temptation. Think of something you have no desire for. Does it tempt you to engage in? Of course not! For me, I have zero desire to attend a Nascar event (no offense to anyone). So there is no fight whatsoever when I see a billboard for some race in Indy. Well that is what can happen with our temptations and sin if only we pursue God. If only we run hard after Him and make Him the focus of our life. It takes time, and we may not reach perfection in this life, but why not go after it?