Wednesday, 2/18/2015

“The maxim, "Nothing prevails but perfection," may be spelled PARALYSIS.” ~ Winston Churchill

LEVITICUS 26, 27

The promises to those who follow all the decrees and obey all the commands... 

3“ ‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. 5Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land. 

9“ ‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. 10You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. 11I will put my dwelling place^aamong you, and I will not abhor you. 12I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.

The promises to those who are disobedient...

14“ ‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you. 

The path to redemption...

 40“ ‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me, ...—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, 42I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham... 

MARK 2

Jesus goes back to Capernaum and while he is teaching at a home, the crowds overwhelm the entrances.  It is here that the paralytic man is lowered through the roof and Jesus heals him.  Jesus then goes to the home of Matthew, whom he had just called to be a disciple.  When the religious leaders hear of this they question...

 16When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

JOURNAL

Reading through all the commandments and laws of Leviticus, it becomes apparent that keeping all the laws is impossible.  Also, redemption only comes once one is humbled and pays for his sin.  To a sinner like myself...I cling to Jesus' claim in Mark.  I need the savior that came to save the sick... 

Quotes from an aged Franciscan friar 

If you feel the call of the Holy Spirit, then be HOLY with all your soul - with all your heart - and with all your strength.If, however, because of human weakness you cannot be holy, then be PERFECT with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength.But, if you cannot be perfect because of vanity in your life, then be GOOD with all your soul, all your heart and with all your strength.Yet, if you cannot be good because of the trickery of the enemy, then be WISE with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength.If, in the end, you can be neither HOLY, nor PERFECT, nor GOOD, nor WISE because of the weight of your sins, then carry this weight before God and surrender your life to His divine mercy.If you do this, without BITTERNESS, with all HUMILITY, and with a JOYFUL SPIRIT, due to the TENDERNESS OF GOD who loves the sinner and the ungrateful, then you will begin to feel what it is to be wise, you will learn what it is to be good, you will slowly aspire to be perfect and finally - you will be holy.If you do all this - with all your heart - with all your soul and with all your strength - then I assure you, my friends, you will be on the path of St. Francis - you will not be far from the Kingdom of God.

8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:8-10)