Ye Condemn yourselves

     Let us take a moment and reflect on our lives.  Whether we have lived up to the standards of the saints, or even of Christ himself.  I can guarantee that many, if not all of us have not lived our lives according to the commandments of God, and that we have all fallen short.  In fact, Romans 3:23 says as much.  However often times when we look at our own lives, we constantly esteem ourselves as better than our neighbor. We say, "Well at least I'm not doing that." However this is a grievous error on our part.  Simply because we refuse to accept our own sins, our condemnation that we have heaped on ourselves by our own rejections of God. We push away God, and we dont even realize the judgements we have reaped because so often we are concerned with others. While we are right to be concerned for our neighbors, there is a difference between being concerned and being judgmental. That is where often times we blur the lines and enter into the realm of hatred and sin.  We become eager to catch our brother or sister in an act of grave sin, so that we may laud it over them that they are worthless and do not deserve the love of God.  When we do this, we cause many to fall out of the faith and leave the church all together.  We are seeing this so much in the church today, with young people and old a like leaving the church all together and falling into the heresy of atheism, all because the Church is failing to love like it should and to join together with our brothers and sisters.  I am not saying that we should enter into sin with them, by no means.  Entering into sin with those people who are committing atrocities like ecumenism, abortions, homosexuality, and the like does not uphold the teachings of the church. However offering compassion, correct teachings, and providing the pathway of repentance through Christ to those who wish to repent must take place.  We must like the river flow towards God, towards unity in faith.  We must first correct ourselves then we can correct others.  Returning to the traditions of the church, restoring the canons in their proper place, fulfilling the prayer life of the church, all of these things we can do to draw people back into the faith of the apostles. Because we offer nothing different than that of the world, the world does not see the benefit of being a part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.  The World (and with a capital W I mean those outside of the Church) see us act in the same manner that they do, they see us judge, they see us condemn, they see us ridicule those who commit sin.  We must be set a part.  We must be Holy, as our Father in Heaven is Holy.  And unlike the Protestants, this is not a one time deal, we don't say a prayer and some sort of magic comes over us and we instantly are Holy. No, this is a struggle, this is the struggle of ascetism, each day we must get up and esteem others better than ourselves.  We must love like Christ loved.  We must pray that God will forgive our sins as he forgives those around us.  We must go into the world and preach the gospel through our actions not through words.  Giving up our own desires, giving up our egos and our lives for the sake of the Gospel. We are called to heal the world, and to draw it back to Christ. When we give of ourselves, when we feed the homeless, when we clothe the naked, visit the infirm, provide for those in prison, then we begin to live in earnest the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Lent is coming swiftly upon us, and it is during this time that we can cleanse ourselves and make room for Jesus Christ in the throne of our hearts.  I pray that during this lent, that while the attacks of the enemy will be strong, that we will resist those attacks and draw upon the living water of Jesus Christ to strengthen us.  

Amen.