The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible therefore, presents the Lord Jesus Christ as altogether God and altogether man/human. The perfect mediator between God and mankind because the Lord Jesus Christ partakes fully of the nature of both. Since Jesus Christ partakes in the nature of both God and humanity, the Lord Jesus Christ occupies a unique status with regard to them. The Lord Jesus Christ represents humanity to God, the Father. Thus, God is both 'Lawgiver' and 'Judge'; the Lord Jesus Christ represents Him. The human family has put itself in the position of the lawbreaker.; and Christ Jesus has voluntarily undertaken to represent us.
The next day, seeing Jesus coming towards John, John the Baptist said, 'Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. This is the One I spoke of when I said: A man is coming after me who ranks before me because He existed before me. - John 1:29-30 -
The work of atonement or redemption for the human race which the Lord Jesus Christ completed by His death on the Cross, refers to the 'finished' work, or 'accomplished' or 'fulfilled' in accordance with the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible. This work is so perfect in itself that it requires neither repetition nor addition, and because of this work, the Lord Jesus Christ is called "Savior of the world."
The Judge has made Himself one with the guilty in order to bear our guilt. It is ordinarily out of the question for one person to bear the guilt of others. But when the one person is the representative man, the Lord Jesus Christ, bearing the guilt of those whom He represents, the case and phenomenon is totally different. In the hour of Jesus death, Christ Jesus offered His life to God on behalf of mankind. The perfect life which Jesus offered was acceptable to God. The salvation secured through the giving up of that life is God's free gift to mankind in the Lord Jesus Christ.
When the situation is viewed in terms of a law court, one might speak of the accused party as being acquitted. But the term preferred in the New Testament, especially in the Apostle/Saint Paul's epistles or writings, is the more positive word 'Justified.' Saint/Apostle Paul goes on to the limit of daring in speaking of God as "Him who justifies the sinners or ungodly." God can be so described because "Jesus Christ died for the ungodly and sinners."
So far then we have seen that, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by love and faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God's glory. But that is not all we can boast about; we can boast about our sufferings. These sufferings bring patience, as we know, and patience brings perseverance, and perseverance brings hope, and hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us. We were still helpless when at His appointed moment the Lord Jesus Christ died for sinful men/women.
It is not easy to die even for a good man/woman - though of course for someone really worthy, a man/woman might be prepared to die - but what proves that God loves us is that Jesus Christ died for us while we were still sinners. Having died to make us righteous, is it likely that He would now fail to save us from God's anger?
When we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, we were still enemies; now that we have been reconciled, surely we may count on being saved by the life of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ? Not merely because we have been reconciled but because we are filled with joyful trust in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have already gained our reconciliation. - Romans 5:1-11 -
Let me put this another way: an heir, even if he/she has actually inherited everything, is no different from a slave for as long as he/she remains a child. He or She is under the control of guardians and administrators until he/she reaches the age fixed by his/her father.
Now before we came of age we were as good as slaves to the elementary principles of this world, but when the appointed time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born of a subject of the Law, to redeem the subjects of the Law and to enable us to be adopted sons and daughters. The proof that you are sons and daughters is that God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts: the Spirit that cries, 'Abba, Father', and it is this that makes you a son and daughter, then He has made you heir.
Once you were ignorant of God, and enslaved to 'gods' who are not really gods at all; but now that you have come to acknowledge God - or rather, now that God acknowledged you - how can you want to go back to elemental things like these, that can do nothing, and be their slaves? You and your special days and months and seasons and years! You make me feel I have wasted my time with you. - Galatians 4:1-11 -
*** Dependence is the very essence of my creature existence, for no person is sufficient unto himself. I am not a speck in a moral void, nor a wanderer without a home, nor an isolated unit in creation. Rather, I am dependent on the God appointed destiny whereby I share my love of God with others who love God in the unity of the Mystical Body of Christ. In that Body which is the fullness of Christ do I find the spiritual environment for my spiritual life. In her I live and move and have my being. From out of her seven fountains I draw the waters of everlasting life. From out her book of the Seven Seals I learn the secrets of the Lamb. From out her tabernacles I draw the Bread of Life and the wine that germinates virgins. My life is her life; my being is her being. She has my love, my service, as I myself have the entire devotion and service of my hand. She is the living organism, but I am an organ. She is the body, but I am a member. She is Life, I am the living thing. She is the Spouse of Christ, I am but a feature. She is the Vine, and I am a branch.
Abide in me, and I am in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine and you are the branches: He that abides in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit: For without me you can do nothing. - John 15:4-5 -
We must not think, because the fullness of our spiritual life is in the universal Church, that she absorbs us and leaves no room for our individual development. Just as in the natural order the individual cell has its own growth even though it dwells in the body, so in like manner the individual Christian has his own personal development even though a member of the Mystical Body.
There is only one sun to shine upon all the flowers of the world, and hence all flowers are members of the kingdom of the sun. But their mutual dependence on the sun does not prevent the sun from drawing out of each flower its own particular beauty, and its own peculiar perfume. So does the Lord Jesus Christ dwelling in the Church give life and beauty to all who receive Him, yet to each individual soul the Mystical Body gives its special life and beauty. So much so, that there is consummated under the bowers of the Church the union of the soul and its Divine Beloved, which death does not part but seals in everlasting bliss.
The body is made up of many members and countless cells - each with its own personality, though all draw upon a common life and are animated by a common soul. There is no legitimate natural twist or bent or leaning of any personality in the world that cannot find its outlet in the organism of the Church.
While living his historical life our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ did not destroy the personalities of His twelve apostles because they were one with him. Nor did He destroy the passion of a Magdalene after her conversion. He merely changed the direction of their inclinations, making them flow upward instead of downward, transforming an impetuous Simon to a daring Peter, a hating Saul into a loving Paul, a flesh-loving Magdalene into a spirit-loving Mary. Now that He has ascended into heaven and sent His Spirit into His Mystical Body the Church, He continues to draw all souls into the common life of that Body without destroying their property as a member or a cell of the Body.
The simple girl of Lisieux did not cease to be a Little Flower because she became a Carmelite in the Mystical Body of Christ. Ignatius was a soldier both before and after he became the founder of the Jesuits. ( Society of Jesus ) Louis IX was a king even though he was a subject of the king of kings. And, in like manner, each and everyone of us may continue to live our distinctly different lives in the office, in the field, at the machine, and at the university, in the humble duties of a routine world and in the lofty position as leaders of others, just as Thomas a Becket could wear the purple on the outside to please his people and the penitential chain on the inside to please himself.
There is no destruction of nature by grace, but only its elevation to another order. Tears are a common fountain for joy and sorrow. Passions, too, are common outlets for virtue and vice. It is not a different passion that makes a person a saint, from that which makes him a devil. It is the same passion going in a different direction. The Church, then, in embracing our lives within her common life does not destroy our personalities - she does not even destroy our most wicked passions. She transmutes them by the magic of her Sacraments, provides new outlets, fixes new goals, and digs new channels.
The heroes of the world are not different from the martyrs. The same natural courage which would make a man die for Caesar on a battlefield, the Church would transmute into a supernatural courage which would make that person die for the Lord Jesus Christ. The bigots are all potential missionaries, for the same zeal that makes them unwittingly serve falsehood can be elevated by the Church to make them serve Divine Truth. The great scientists are all incipient theologians, for that same curiosity, which drives them to a knowledge of secondary causes, the Church transmutes by leading them to a knowledge of the First Cause which is God. We would not say that the hero who became a saint, nor the bigot who became a missionary, nor the scientist who became a theologian, lost their personalities once incorporated into Christ's Body, any more than we lost our personalities once we became citizens of a nation.
But we would say that in their union with that common life of grace they had found the sublimation of their distinct selves. They would see, as we see, that Christ's Mystical Body is like a beautiful garden, formed by the blossoming of individual flowers each in its own beauty, but in its varied beauty blending into one harmonious, rapturous delight. Each flower of that garden has its own beauty revealed as in no other flower, yet each flower grows in beauty by contrast and by blending with the other flowers all rooted in a common soil and lighted by a common sun.
So it is in the mystical life, where the Lord Jesus Christ dwells in His Church, revealing Himself anew in each individual soul, and never in two wholly alike - here manifesting Himself in a Peter, there in a Paul, here in a Martha, there in a Mary, here in a lover of His infancy, there in a lover of His Cross, here in a rose with thorns, there in a flower without them, and yet all growing more beautiful by their fellowship with other saintly flowers because all rooted in the same Christ-life and all lighted by the same Christ-truth.
*** BY VENERABLE / ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN ( 1895 to 1979 )
The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible therefore, presents the Lord Jesus Christ as altogether God and altogether man/human. The perfect mediator between God and mankind because the Lord Jesus Christ partakes fully of the nature of both. Since Jesus Christ partakes in the nature of both God and humanity, the Lord Jesus Christ occupies a unique status with regard to them. The Lord Jesus Christ represents humanity to God, the Father. Thus, God is both 'Lawgiver' and 'Judge'; the Lord Jesus Christ represents Him. The human family has put itself in the position of the lawbreaker.; and Christ Jesus has voluntarily undertaken to represent us.
The next day, seeing Jesus coming towards John, John the Baptist said, 'Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. This is the One I spoke of when I said: A man is coming after me who ranks before me because He existed before me. - John 1:29-30 -
The next day, seeing Jesus coming towards John, John the Baptist said, 'Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. This is the One I spoke of when I said: A man is coming after me who ranks before me because He existed before me. - John 1:29-30 -
The work of atonement or redemption for the human race which the Lord Jesus Christ completed by His death on the Cross, refers to the 'finished' work, or 'accomplished' or 'fulfilled' in accordance with the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible. This work is so perfect in itself that it requires neither repetition nor addition, and because of this work, the Lord Jesus Christ is called "Savior of the world."
The Judge has made Himself one with the guilty in order to bear our guilt. It is ordinarily out of the question for one person to bear the guilt of others. But when the one person is the representative man, the Lord Jesus Christ, bearing the guilt of those whom He represents, the case and phenomenon is totally different. In the hour of Jesus death, Christ Jesus offered His life to God on behalf of mankind. The perfect life which Jesus offered was acceptable to God. The salvation secured through the giving up of that life is God's free gift to mankind in the Lord Jesus Christ.
When the situation is viewed in terms of a law court, one might speak of the accused party as being acquitted. But the term preferred in the New Testament, especially in the Apostle/Saint Paul's epistles or writings, is the more positive word 'Justified.' Saint/Apostle Paul goes on to the limit of daring in speaking of God as "Him who justifies the sinners or ungodly." God can be so described because "Jesus Christ died for the ungodly and sinners."
So far then we have seen that, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by love and faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God's glory. But that is not all we can boast about; we can boast about our sufferings. These sufferings bring patience, as we know, and patience brings perseverance, and perseverance brings hope, and hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us. We were still helpless when at His appointed moment the Lord Jesus Christ died for sinful men/women.
It is not easy to die even for a good man/woman - though of course for someone really worthy, a man/woman might be prepared to die - but what proves that God loves us is that Jesus Christ died for us while we were still sinners. Having died to make us righteous, is it likely that He would now fail to save us from God's anger?
When we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, we were still enemies; now that we have been reconciled, surely we may count on being saved by the life of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ? Not merely because we have been reconciled but because we are filled with joyful trust in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have already gained our reconciliation. - Romans 5:1-11 -
Let me put this another way: an heir, even if he/she has actually inherited everything, is no different from a slave for as long as he/she remains a child. He or She is under the control of guardians and administrators until he/she reaches the age fixed by his/her father.
Now before we came of age we were as good as slaves to the elementary principles of this world, but when the appointed time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born of a subject of the Law, to redeem the subjects of the Law and to enable us to be adopted sons and daughters. The proof that you are sons and daughters is that God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts: the Spirit that cries, 'Abba, Father', and it is this that makes you a son and daughter, then He has made you heir.
Once you were ignorant of God, and enslaved to 'gods' who are not really gods at all; but now that you have come to acknowledge God - or rather, now that God acknowledged you - how can you want to go back to elemental things like these, that can do nothing, and be their slaves? You and your special days and months and seasons and years! You make me feel I have wasted my time with you. - Galatians 4:1-11 -
*** Dependence is the very essence of my creature existence, for no person is sufficient unto himself. I am not a speck in a moral void, nor a wanderer without a home, nor an isolated unit in creation. Rather, I am dependent on the God appointed destiny whereby I share my love of God with others who love God in the unity of the Mystical Body of Christ. In that Body which is the fullness of Christ do I find the spiritual environment for my spiritual life. In her I live and move and have my being. From out of her seven fountains I draw the waters of everlasting life. From out her book of the Seven Seals I learn the secrets of the Lamb. From out her tabernacles I draw the Bread of Life and the wine that germinates virgins. My life is her life; my being is her being. She has my love, my service, as I myself have the entire devotion and service of my hand. She is the living organism, but I am an organ. She is the body, but I am a member. She is Life, I am the living thing. She is the Spouse of Christ, I am but a feature. She is the Vine, and I am a branch.
Abide in me, and I am in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine and you are the branches: He that abides in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit: For without me you can do nothing. - John 15:4-5 -
We must not think, because the fullness of our spiritual life is in the universal Church, that she absorbs us and leaves no room for our individual development. Just as in the natural order the individual cell has its own growth even though it dwells in the body, so in like manner the individual Christian has his own personal development even though a member of the Mystical Body.
There is only one sun to shine upon all the flowers of the world, and hence all flowers are members of the kingdom of the sun. But their mutual dependence on the sun does not prevent the sun from drawing out of each flower its own particular beauty, and its own peculiar perfume. So does the Lord Jesus Christ dwelling in the Church give life and beauty to all who receive Him, yet to each individual soul the Mystical Body gives its special life and beauty. So much so, that there is consummated under the bowers of the Church the union of the soul and its Divine Beloved, which death does not part but seals in everlasting bliss.
The body is made up of many members and countless cells - each with its own personality, though all draw upon a common life and are animated by a common soul. There is no legitimate natural twist or bent or leaning of any personality in the world that cannot find its outlet in the organism of the Church.
While living his historical life our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ did not destroy the personalities of His twelve apostles because they were one with him. Nor did He destroy the passion of a Magdalene after her conversion. He merely changed the direction of their inclinations, making them flow upward instead of downward, transforming an impetuous Simon to a daring Peter, a hating Saul into a loving Paul, a flesh-loving Magdalene into a spirit-loving Mary. Now that He has ascended into heaven and sent His Spirit into His Mystical Body the Church, He continues to draw all souls into the common life of that Body without destroying their property as a member or a cell of the Body.
The simple girl of Lisieux did not cease to be a Little Flower because she became a Carmelite in the Mystical Body of Christ. Ignatius was a soldier both before and after he became the founder of the Jesuits. ( Society of Jesus ) Louis IX was a king even though he was a subject of the king of kings. And, in like manner, each and everyone of us may continue to live our distinctly different lives in the office, in the field, at the machine, and at the university, in the humble duties of a routine world and in the lofty position as leaders of others, just as Thomas a Becket could wear the purple on the outside to please his people and the penitential chain on the inside to please himself.
There is no destruction of nature by grace, but only its elevation to another order. Tears are a common fountain for joy and sorrow. Passions, too, are common outlets for virtue and vice. It is not a different passion that makes a person a saint, from that which makes him a devil. It is the same passion going in a different direction. The Church, then, in embracing our lives within her common life does not destroy our personalities - she does not even destroy our most wicked passions. She transmutes them by the magic of her Sacraments, provides new outlets, fixes new goals, and digs new channels.
The heroes of the world are not different from the martyrs. The same natural courage which would make a man die for Caesar on a battlefield, the Church would transmute into a supernatural courage which would make that person die for the Lord Jesus Christ. The bigots are all potential missionaries, for the same zeal that makes them unwittingly serve falsehood can be elevated by the Church to make them serve Divine Truth. The great scientists are all incipient theologians, for that same curiosity, which drives them to a knowledge of secondary causes, the Church transmutes by leading them to a knowledge of the First Cause which is God. We would not say that the hero who became a saint, nor the bigot who became a missionary, nor the scientist who became a theologian, lost their personalities once incorporated into Christ's Body, any more than we lost our personalities once we became citizens of a nation.
But we would say that in their union with that common life of grace they had found the sublimation of their distinct selves. They would see, as we see, that Christ's Mystical Body is like a beautiful garden, formed by the blossoming of individual flowers each in its own beauty, but in its varied beauty blending into one harmonious, rapturous delight. Each flower of that garden has its own beauty revealed as in no other flower, yet each flower grows in beauty by contrast and by blending with the other flowers all rooted in a common soil and lighted by a common sun.
So it is in the mystical life, where the Lord Jesus Christ dwells in His Church, revealing Himself anew in each individual soul, and never in two wholly alike - here manifesting Himself in a Peter, there in a Paul, here in a Martha, there in a Mary, here in a lover of His infancy, there in a lover of His Cross, here in a rose with thorns, there in a flower without them, and yet all growing more beautiful by their fellowship with other saintly flowers because all rooted in the same Christ-life and all lighted by the same Christ-truth.
*** BY VENERABLE / ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN ( 1895 to 1979 )
Abide in me, and I am in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine and you are the branches: He that abides in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit: For without me you can do nothing. - John 15:4-5 -
We must not think, because the fullness of our spiritual life is in the universal Church, that she absorbs us and leaves no room for our individual development. Just as in the natural order the individual cell has its own growth even though it dwells in the body, so in like manner the individual Christian has his own personal development even though a member of the Mystical Body.
There is only one sun to shine upon all the flowers of the world, and hence all flowers are members of the kingdom of the sun. But their mutual dependence on the sun does not prevent the sun from drawing out of each flower its own particular beauty, and its own peculiar perfume. So does the Lord Jesus Christ dwelling in the Church give life and beauty to all who receive Him, yet to each individual soul the Mystical Body gives its special life and beauty. So much so, that there is consummated under the bowers of the Church the union of the soul and its Divine Beloved, which death does not part but seals in everlasting bliss.
The body is made up of many members and countless cells - each with its own personality, though all draw upon a common life and are animated by a common soul. There is no legitimate natural twist or bent or leaning of any personality in the world that cannot find its outlet in the organism of the Church.
While living his historical life our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ did not destroy the personalities of His twelve apostles because they were one with him. Nor did He destroy the passion of a Magdalene after her conversion. He merely changed the direction of their inclinations, making them flow upward instead of downward, transforming an impetuous Simon to a daring Peter, a hating Saul into a loving Paul, a flesh-loving Magdalene into a spirit-loving Mary. Now that He has ascended into heaven and sent His Spirit into His Mystical Body the Church, He continues to draw all souls into the common life of that Body without destroying their property as a member or a cell of the Body.
The simple girl of Lisieux did not cease to be a Little Flower because she became a Carmelite in the Mystical Body of Christ. Ignatius was a soldier both before and after he became the founder of the Jesuits. ( Society of Jesus ) Louis IX was a king even though he was a subject of the king of kings. And, in like manner, each and everyone of us may continue to live our distinctly different lives in the office, in the field, at the machine, and at the university, in the humble duties of a routine world and in the lofty position as leaders of others, just as Thomas a Becket could wear the purple on the outside to please his people and the penitential chain on the inside to please himself.
There is no destruction of nature by grace, but only its elevation to another order. Tears are a common fountain for joy and sorrow. Passions, too, are common outlets for virtue and vice. It is not a different passion that makes a person a saint, from that which makes him a devil. It is the same passion going in a different direction. The Church, then, in embracing our lives within her common life does not destroy our personalities - she does not even destroy our most wicked passions. She transmutes them by the magic of her Sacraments, provides new outlets, fixes new goals, and digs new channels.
The heroes of the world are not different from the martyrs. The same natural courage which would make a man die for Caesar on a battlefield, the Church would transmute into a supernatural courage which would make that person die for the Lord Jesus Christ. The bigots are all potential missionaries, for the same zeal that makes them unwittingly serve falsehood can be elevated by the Church to make them serve Divine Truth. The great scientists are all incipient theologians, for that same curiosity, which drives them to a knowledge of secondary causes, the Church transmutes by leading them to a knowledge of the First Cause which is God. We would not say that the hero who became a saint, nor the bigot who became a missionary, nor the scientist who became a theologian, lost their personalities once incorporated into Christ's Body, any more than we lost our personalities once we became citizens of a nation.
But we would say that in their union with that common life of grace they had found the sublimation of their distinct selves. They would see, as we see, that Christ's Mystical Body is like a beautiful garden, formed by the blossoming of individual flowers each in its own beauty, but in its varied beauty blending into one harmonious, rapturous delight. Each flower of that garden has its own beauty revealed as in no other flower, yet each flower grows in beauty by contrast and by blending with the other flowers all rooted in a common soil and lighted by a common sun.
So it is in the mystical life, where the Lord Jesus Christ dwells in His Church, revealing Himself anew in each individual soul, and never in two wholly alike - here manifesting Himself in a Peter, there in a Paul, here in a Martha, there in a Mary, here in a lover of His infancy, there in a lover of His Cross, here in a rose with thorns, there in a flower without them, and yet all growing more beautiful by their fellowship with other saintly flowers because all rooted in the same Christ-life and all lighted by the same Christ-truth.
*** BY VENERABLE / ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN ( 1895 to 1979 )
When Jesus heard that the Pharisees had found out that he was making and baptising more disciples than John - though in fact it was his disciples who baptised, not Jesus himself - he left Judaea and went back to Galilee. This mean that he had to cross Samaria.
On the way Jesus came to the Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob's well is there and Jesus, tired by the journey, sat straight down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink'. His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, 'What? You are a Jew and you ask me, a Samaritan, for a drink?' - Jews, in fact, do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus replied:
'If you only knew what God is offering,
and who it is that is saying to you:
Give me a drink,
you would have been the one to ask,
and He would have given you living water.'
'You have no bucket, sir,' she answered 'and the well is deep: how could you get this living water? Are you a greater man than our father Jacob/Israel who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his sons and his cattle?' Jesus replied:
'Whoever drinks this water
will get thirsty again;
but anyone who drinks the water that I shall give
will never be thirsty again:
the water that I give
will turn into a spring inside him/her, welling up to eternal life.'
'Sir,' said the woman 'give me some of that water, so that I may never get thirsty and never have to come here again to draw water.' 'Go and call your husband' said Jesus to her 'and come back here.' The woman answered, 'I have no husband'. He said to her, 'You are right to say, "I have no husband"; for although you have had five, the one you have now is not your husband. You spoke the truth there.' 'I see you are a prophet, sir' said the woman. 'Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, while you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.' Jesus said:
'Believe me, woman, the hour is coming
when you will worship the Father
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You worship what you do not know;
we worship what we do know;
for salvation comes from the Jews.
But the hour will come - in fact it is here already -
when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth:
that is the kind of worshipper
the Father wants.
God is spirit,
and those who worship
must worship in spirit and truth.'
The woman said to Jesus, 'I know that Messiah-that is, Christ-is coming; and when he comes he will tell us everything'. 'I who am speaking to you.' said Jesus 'I am he.'
At this point his disciples returned, and were surprised to find him speaking to a woman though none of them asked, 'What do you want from her?' The woman put down her water jar and hurried back to the town to tell the people, 'Come and see a man who has told me everything I ever did; I wonder if he is the Christ?' This brought people out of the town and they started walking towards Jesus.
Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus, 'Rabbi, do have something to eat'; but He said, 'I have food to eat that you do not know about.' So the disciples asked one another, 'Has someone been bringing Jesus food?' But Jesus said:
'My food
is to do the will of the one Who sent Me,
and to complete His work.
Have you not got a saying:
Four months and then the harvest?
Well, I tell you:
Look around you, look at the fields;
already they are white, ready for harvest!
Already the reaper is being paid his/her wages,
already he/she is bringing in the grain for eternal life,
and thus sower and reaper rejoice together.
For here the proverb holds good:
one sows, another reaps;
I sent you to reap
a harvest you had not worked for.
Others worked for it;
and you have come into the rewards of their trouble.'
Many Samaritans of that town had believed in Jesus on the strength of the woman's testimony when she said, 'He told me all I have ever done', so, when the Samaritians came up to Jesus, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed for two days, and when he spoke to them many more came to believe; and they said to the woman, 'Now we no longer believe because of what you told us; we have heard Him ourselves and we know that the Lord Jesus Christ really is the "Saviour of the world." - John 4:1-42 - John chapter 6 - John 7:37-39 -
JOHN - CHAPTER 6 - IV. ANOTHER PASSOVER, THE BREAD OF LIFE - The miracle of the loaves - Jesus walks on the waters - The discourse in the synagogue at Capernaum - Peter's profession of faith - Then Jesus said to the Twelve, 'What about you, do you want to go away too?' Simon Peter answered, 'Lord. who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe' we know that you are the Holy One of God.' Jesus replied, 'Have I not chosen you, you Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.' Jesus meant Judas son of Simon Iscariot since this was the man, one of the Twelve, who was going to betray Jesus. - John 6:67-71 -
- JOHN 7:37-39 - The promise of living water - On the last day and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood there and cried out: 'If any man/woman is thirsty, let them come to me! Let the man/woman come and drink who believes in me!' As scripture says: From his breast shall flow fountains of living water. He was speaking of the Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive; for there was no Spirit as yet because Jesus had not yet been glorified. - John 7:37-39 -
- WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY -
Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!
Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 -
If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 -
I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -
Your generous contribution and support is profoundly cherish. I sincerely pray that: God blessing be upon you, always. Amen! Bank transfer: Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah - Public Bank Berhad account no. 4076577113 - Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
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