KNOWING JESUS , KNOWING OURSELVES

SABBATH

In order to know who we are in God’s eyes, we need to first get to know Jesus as it is in and through Him that we exist on at least two levels. God created the world in the beginning through His word — He spoke and it came to be. Jesus is the Word of God. It is through Him that all things live and move and have their being. Secondly, we have been saved by the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. We have been recreated in Him. We owe our lives to Jesus twice. In a sense, it is even more often than this. Each time we receive His forgiveness for our sins, we move from the realm of sin and death into His presence, a place of truth and holiness and life. When Jesus asks His disciples as to who people think He is, what He is really doing is challenging them to make a choice. He wants them to know who He really is to them because when persecution comes, this will be a very large determining factor whether or not they will remain faithful to Him. Our Christian life is full of difficult and challenging situations. It is imperative that we know who we are in God’s eyes to be able to combat the temptations of sin. It is equally important to understand our identity in Christ as the world will make all sorts of offers to us about fame, wealth and so on. Only if we are firmly rooted in our faith will we be able to resist them until the end. Sin has a way of persisting in its goal and if we are at all uncertain of who we are in Christ, then it will take advantage of that uncertainty. So, it is worth taking the time to get to know Jesus through prayer, the Scriptures and the inspiration of the lives of saints if we want to protect ourselves from the dangers of sin and also to give our knowledge and experience a better foundation from which to share the Gospel. Fr. Steve Tynan, MGL Reflection Question: Am I sure of my identity as a disciple of Jesus or do I still have to grow in this? Holy Spirit, help me to surrender more and more each day to the truth of my identity in You so that I will be able to stand firm when trials and difficulties come my way. St. Raynerius of Spalatro, pray for us.