DAILY HOMILIES #commandments

Trust God and obey His word. Trust your parents (your elders, your teachers, etc.) and keep to their instructions. It might seem hard for you to just be good but I tell you, this is the shortest cut to success in life. This is what Moses teaches us in today’s first reading. Give heed to the statutes and the ordinances… that you may live and take possession of the land… God means well by giving us the commandments.

Learn to see the face of Jesus in the suffering. Help people not simply because you seek to be compensated but because you realize it is Jesus you are helping. Whatever you give to the poor may not come back now but it becomes a great treasure stored in heaven where no thief can break in and steal nor rust destroys. (Matthew 6:19-20)

One of the ways we resemble God is our capacity to will something into existence, that is, to create out of nothing. Just as God imagined the world before creation and then spoke it into existence, we have the power to imagine things and speak them into existence.

Just as many made efforts to get to Jesus for healing, we need to make every effort to get to God, obey his word, and live according to the original purpose of our creation in other to find wholeness and life. The more we try to touch Jesus, the more we allow the light of Christ to shine through us, the closer we get to healing and the closer we get to our original goodness.

Why do I have loads of excuses for God when He has provided a shortcut for me to achieve all my desires? Jesus himself said: “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you” (Matthew 6:33). Do you believe this? Why not give God a try today?

It is one thing to call a person your friend but a different thing for that person to recognize you as his or her friend. God considers us as His friends but the question is: How many of us relate with God as His true friends? In other words, how many of us are faithful to God’s commandments? How many of us love others as much as God loves us?.

We find it difficult to obey God’s words because we do not trust God. Deep within us, we do not believe there is any value in keeping God’s commandments. Somehow, we have come to believe the lie of the devil, that by “eating of the fruit” we would not die but our eyes would be open, we would be like God.

Our Gospel passage calls for a thorough examination of conscience. Are there things that I am doing under the guise of religion that God is not happy with?

Jesus did not simply say: “you shall love your neighbour,” He carefully added, “as yourself.” Without love for self, there is no love for neighbour. One who cannot love himself or herself cannot also love his neighbour.

Growing up demands that we are no longer content with keeping the law as it is stated in black and white but that we now aim to love God above all things and our neighbour as ourselves.

Have I denied God’s existence by displaying holiness in public only to fall back to evil in secret? Have I denied God’s existence by engaging in immoral behaviours such as those St. Paul describes in our first reading?

Like one lost in a strange land, the Israelites were really lost when they found themselves in the middle of nowhere in the desert. When God gave these commandments, he actually provided a map; a map towards achieving wisdom, joy, enlightenment, and long life.