Before the foundations

… You have loved me before the foundation of the world. – John 17:24

The relationship between Jesus and His Father is extremely intimate. It is like a love story, they are like two lovers. I can imagine the expression on His Father’s face when He heard Jesus praying this prayer, how delighted Daddy must have been, how pleased and radiant. Yet, in the midst of those feelings, I believe that He must have felt sorrow as well, knowing the fate that His Son had to endure for the sake of the human race.

God was so in love with His Son that He hid Him in so many places in the Old Testament, all throughout the Old Testament we see Jesus concealed, and finally in the New Testament, we see Him revealed, love indestructible walking and talking with lowly humans. If only they knew from the beginning who they were dealing with, this magnificent God.

In Genesis, we see how Jesus is personified through the character of Melchizedek, the High Priest of Salem. Abram encountered Melchizedek who brought bread and wine to him. (Genesis 14:18) Melchizedek also blessed Abram. This is amazing, because in Hebrews we see the author explaining to his readers that this character none other than Jesus Christ Himself. (Hebrews 7:1-3)

The author of Hebrews says that Melchizedek was ‘without father, mother or ancestry, without beginning days or end of life, like the Son of God he remains a priest forever.’ (Hebrews 7:3) Melchizedek is like Jesus; what’s more interesting is that the name Melchizedek means king of righteousness, and king of Salem, referring to Jerusalem, meaning king of peace.

We know that Jesus is Prince of Peace, (Isaiah 9:6) and we know that through the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we have all been made righteous. (2 Corinthians 5:21) He is the person that dispenses righteousness and His shalom-peace to us. God love Jesus so much that even in the beginning of everything, He was showing types of His Son to the human race.

If you read about this Melchizedek you will note that he brings bread and wine to Abram. What a wonderful picture this is! Even before the entire world stooped deep into sin, God had already provided a delivery system for the entire human race, the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, celebrated every time in the Holy Communion. You know, in the book of Revelation, John writes about the Lamb that was ‘slain before the foundations of the world.’ (Revelation 13:8)

Why am I going through all this you may ask, well I’ll tell you, it is because you will never know how much God loves you until you know how much God loved His son. He loved us so much, that He dare send His one and only Son in whom He was pleased with, in whom He loved before the foundation of the world as a ransom for many, that while we were still helpless, still in sin, He loved us and died a cruel death for us on that bloody tree.

Before the creation of the cosmos, God had already thought of you, you were a thought in the mind of the Creator, before you even knew Him, He knew you, and called you by name, and loved you beyond your wildest imaginations. This same Jesus, stood before Nicodemus who came to Him in the middle of the night, most probably afraid for His life, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

God so loved the world and God so loved Jesus. In the revelation of Jesus Christ, we find live for eternity. Someone once told me, even if there was eternal life, I wouldn’t want to live it, because it would be boring. My friend, life with God is never ever boring, His amazing, astounding love reveals new things to us every single day, every single time.

There is nothing boring in God, He is the most exciting Being I have ever encountered in life, and He is so much more than anything I could ever imagine. I believe in a God who loves me so much He sent His Son that He was in love with Him to die on a Cross for me. Only love could do such a thing, and yet our minds do not have the capacity to understand such love.

Beloved, God loves you no matter what. Jesus through the Holy Spirit is making continuously making the Father known to us, He says, ‘I have made You known to them, and will continue to make You known in order that the love You have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.’ (John 17:26) Don’t you know that God loves you and He wants you to be with Him, forever? He wants to be in you and all about you.

God wants to capture your imaginations, your emotions, everything about you. He wants to fall in love with you over and over again. Heck, He is in love with you, so madly in love with you! The same love that He has for His Son is the love that He has so freely lavished upon you. You will never know how much God loves you until you know how much He loved His Son. Think about this today, God loved you before the foundations of the world.

May Jesus Christ be praised!
Francisco Overee

Don't underestimate Grace

And now I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace that has power to build you up and to give you your inheritance among all the sanctified. – Acts 20:32

We can never understand the extent of God’s Grace while we are here upon this earth, Grace will one day bring us home to Him, and how much my soul longs for that moment when I finally see Him with my own eyes, for now, I have only heard of Him but soon my eyes will see. While I’m still here though, I believe that I need to explore the deep riches of His Grace and unravel whatever I can for the sake of the Church of God and for society itself.

Grace draws us to Him, Grace is not a doctrine or a teaching, it is a person, and it is the very person of Jesus Christ. (John 1:17) To understand Grace is to understand Jesus, it is a study of Christ, and we know that Jesus is the reflection of the Father in action, living and breathing among men. To see glimpses of Jesus is to see the Father, and to see the Father is to understand His nature; Grace.

From time began, Grace has been with us. It was Grace that made us, and Grace that saved us. When I hear that old hymn, Grace greater than our sin, I can’t help myself from substituting the word Grace with God, and there I got the revelation that it is God Himself that is greater than my sins, all my sins. When I’m down with failure and overwhelmed with something foolish that I’ve done, I just remember this; God is so much bigger than my sin, and He can pardon and cleanse me deep within.

The Apostle Paul understood the importance of the Gospel of Grace, and he preached relentlessly on the matter. In today’s reading we see how Paul commends his listeners to God and to the word of His Grace. It is interesting to know why He did such a thing. We know that he was never going to see His listeners again, the funny thing was that he did not warm them of judgment if they sinner, or gave them a list of do’s and don’ts.

Instead, he commended them to Grace, why? Because Paul knew that Grace had the power to build them up. Why is it that we rely so much on our self-effort to deal with sin and failure when the grace of God is so available to us today? It is marvelously available and here are drowning ourselves in all kinds of self-help dogma’s and doctrines, trying to help ourselves when from the beginning God knew that we couldn’t do it, that’s why He sent His Son in the first place!

My friend, don’t underestimate Grace; don’t underestimate God. Cause it has power to build you up, to make you strong, to strengthen you, to reform your heart, to transform you into the man or woman that God wants you to be. Grace is not a teaching, it is a person, so when Paul commended them to the word of Grace, He was commending them to God Himself, I believe he just repeated that to show the emphasis.

Just like Jesus who prayed in today’s gospel reading; ‘Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.’ (John 17:17) What is this word? I believe it is the word of Grace that Jesus so lavishly expounded to His disciples over and over again, there is sanctity in Grace! Grace sanctifies you, Grace makes you holy. Because your deeds and works cannot make you holy, they cannot save you, your avoidance of sin cannot make you your inheritance.

What is our inheritance? Our inheritance is the Kingdom of Heaven itself, we are called for that true home, and rejoice beloved, we’re going there one day. We can only be admitted into that place through Grace, only Grace can bring us home, to Him, where we will stand with all the sanctified and cry ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty!’

But it’s not only heaven, as a sanctified people, we are given access to pray to the Father, and enter into His throne room daily to receive mercy and grace. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He said, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10) Many today are searching for the will of God as though it is something so difficult to understand, granted there are times where it is difficult to know the will of God, but in our daily lives, it is so easy to know it!

It saddens me when I hear Christians saying that cancer and calamities, sicknesses and disasters are the will of God. They are not! If cancer was the will of God, then in heaven they’ll be people with cancer. Why? Because, His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In other words, as heaven is, let earth be, as heaven is, let my state be, as heaven is, let my country be, as heaven is, let my home be, as heaven is, let my body be.

Our inheritance is so much more than we can imagine, there is so much more, when we think we have come to the end of ourselves, that’s when we see the beginning of God, for God cannot work if we want to put our busy noses into everything. We need to allow Him to do as He wills, and we know that His will for us is nothing more than goodness and kindness, justice and peace, as heaven is, so let earth be.

Grace teaches us to see God, it teaches us to fall in love with Him, it teaches us to worship Him, to honor Him with our words and actions. Only Grace can do such a thing, don’t underestimate Grace, and don’t underestimate God. He is so much bigger, so much stronger, so much mightier than anything we can imagine and think of. The God of Grace builds you up and shows you your inheritance!

May Jesus Christ be praised!
Francisco Overee

Behavior Modification vs. Heart Reformation

But life to me is not a thing to waste words on, provided that when I finish my race I have carried out the mission the Lord Jesus gave me – and that was to bear witness to the Good News of God’s grace.
– Acts 20:24

I just love the character of St. Paul in the Early Church. He’s the Apostle to whom the revelation of Grace was fully given to, he’s writings are remarkable but difficult to understand, what’s worse is that if it’s not taken in its proper context, then we’ll end up with a con. Even St. Peter said that the works of Paul were difficult to grasp. (2 Peter 3:16)

Paul resolves to believe that his purpose in life is to ‘bear witness to the Good News of God’s grace.’ This calling is admirable and something to be well desired for, I believe that all of us are called to the same thing that Paul was called to. Our goal in this life is not only to live holy and blameless before God, like Paul we are also called to bear witness to the Good News.

It is sad though that many Christians don’t know what the Good News is all about. They know that Jesus came to die for their sins and they are forgiven, and that one day they’ll see Him face to face, but many don’t know what that means for us today; whilst we are still here on earth. We all have the right to know the Good News of Grace and we all have the burden of carrying the Good News to those who don’t know about it.

We need to expound the grace that is found so freely in Jesus Christ so that this generation can come before God in all humility and repentance to have they hearts transformed and their souls saved, for Scriptures reveal that by calling on the name of the Lord, we are saved. (Joel 2:32) But ‘how, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?’ (Romans 10:14)

I have to say though that not all are called to the ministry of preaching, we are not all called to have blogs and write 10 page sermons for a congregation, there are a select few that the Lord Himself has chosen to live such a life, dedicated to the spread of the Good News. But we are all definitely called, by Christian virtues to live a life that reflects the Gospel as much as possible.

There must be no compromise, the Good News of Grace must spread, and there needs to be an even greater revealing of Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior. If we truly reveal the Gospel as it is we will see a whole new generation of believers, one that is impacted with faith and undying love for the One who has loved us first. The Gospel is attractive and we need to share it.

Like in today’s responsorial psalm, the writer acclaims the Lord, as the One ‘who daily bears our burdens. Our God is a God who saves!’ (Psalm 68:19-20) It is no wonder that Jesus while He walked on the earth said boldly, “Come unto me all you are tired and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) The CCC defines the Grace of God as ‘favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to His call to become children of God.’ (CCC 1996)

That is one of my favorite quotes from the Catechism, because it outlines Grace in the most perfect of ways.  We hear so many Bible-banging speakers today, coming against so called ‘unchristian’ behavior of Christians, insisting that they are behaving no less than ‘sinners’. The thing is that banging sinners on the head with the moral code and the Ten Commandments does not give them the power to overcome sin and modify their behavior; the only thing that has such power is Grace!

There is a need to start teaching our people the Grace of God. Grace does not look for behavior modification; it is interested in heart transformation, or as the CCC puts it, heart reformation. (CCC 1984)

The Law of the Gospel is Grace itself; it is God coming to man who cannot help themselves and bestowing upon Him what he truly does not deserve (grace) and withholding from him what he truly deserves. (Mercy)

A revelation of grace keeps man in love with Jesus. When we understand and believe in the work that Jesus has done for us, we are compelled to love Him, we are compelled to live the Beatitudes, and we are compelled to love our neighbor. There is no offence in love, for love is the fulfilling of the Law. A revelation of grace brings man to behavior modification, supernaturally naturally.

Grace means knowing God as Father. That’s what the CCC says Grace does, we ‘respond to His call to become children of God, adoptive sons.’ It is learning how to become partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life. We become like Him; we are made like Him. It is interesting to see the prayer of Jesus found in the Gospel reading today, His prayer to the Father is grace-filled.

He prayers: ‘Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.’ (John 17:11) What is the name that Jesus revealed to His disciples? The name that Jesus revealed to them from the start of His ministry to His death on the Cross is simply this; Father. That is the name He revealed, over and over again.

And He prays that God keeps us save through the power of that name. You know what that means; there is protection in the name of the Father! God is not only your Defender as I pointed out yesterday, He is also your Protector, He keeps you save in His arms, there is protection in the name of the Father. When we call on Him, “Abba, Daddy, Papa” He comes to our rescue, this can only be done by grace.

Through Grace we have been thought to call God, through Grace we have been made adoptive sons, and through Grace we will be kept the same until we see Him. How can we hurt our Father? What more a perfect Father! He loves us beyond our wildest imaginations, He even gave His only Son for our sake, and to adopt us He abandoned His own Son.

In Grace, by Grace we are taught to obey God and fulfill the Law of the Gospel, the Law of Love. God is not after behavior modification, He is after heart reformation. He wants to reform our hearts, many hearts are broken, wounded, and He wants to pick up the pieces and reform it from the inside out, that through that reformation, we are made new, and given the power to love Him and in our love, obey Him.

May Jesus Christ be praised!
Francisco Overee

Father.Defender.Homemaker.Liberator

Father of the orphan, defender of the widow, such is God in His holy place. God gives the lone a home to live in; He leads the prisoners forth into freedom. – Psalm 68: 5-6

We need to watch what we are preaching, there is need to stick to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to make sure that our words are truly the Gospel, in other words the Good News. There is nothing bad in the Gospel, nothing! The only bad news found in the Gospel is for the Devil and his minions, he is squashed and given his rightful place, for us, the believer and for the rest of the world, it is all good.

I’ve said it before that it really hurts me when I hear the sin hunt and condemnation message from the pulpit. I remember someone telling a story about a young man who came for Mass late and the person went up to this young man and stated the time and told the guy that he was late. As if the guy did not already know that he was late. I remember thinking to myself; will we ever see this young man in Church again?

The way we act and the things we say to people affect them tremendously, whether we like it or not. I’d like to put this under the category of spiritual bullying, and truthfully there is no reason whatsoever for spiritual bullying. The person maybe late for Mass or irreverent during a Church service, our job is not to correct with a condescending and demeaning tone. Our job is to correct, don’t get me wrong, but in love and upholding words.

If we claim to have the gifts and the fruits of the Holy Spirit present in our lives through the grace of Baptism and Confirmation then we need to act as though they are there, all those fruits, ‘love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.’ (Galatians 5:22-23) should flow supernaturally naturally when we confront someone about something.

But enough about that let me get to my main message. It’s just that I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for us to preach the Good News so that people might come to know Christ, accept Him as their Lord and Savior and have a loving relationship with Him. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for leaders, shepherds and pastors to reveal the Father in all His beauty and majesty, His loveliness and gracefulness.

We see the loveliness of God revealed over and over again in Scripture, we see how He operates and how He loves us. We read about how He makes ways, how He makes what is bitter sweet, what is plain like water turn into the most tasteful of wines for our enjoyment. Sadly we don’t hear much about this God who is for us much from the pulpits. We normally hear how we are not for God in the area of sin.

The psalmist today speaks of God as a Father, a Defender, a Homemaker and a Liberator. These four aspects of God make the composer of God shout for joy, it makes him rejoice and worship, it makes him fall in love with God all over again, he seems to be taken over by the revelation that he has received from God Himself about His divine nature.

He commands praise from his hearers and encourages them to worship God, he sings; ‘Sing to God, sing in praise of His name, extol Him who rides on the clouds, rejoice Him, His name is the Lord!’ (Psalm 68:4) It is interesting to note how the worshipper refers to God as the one who ‘rides on the clouds’, I believe that this is in reference to a verse found in the Book of Deuteronomy:

‘There is no one like the God of Israel. He rides the ancient heavens to help you, across the skies in majestic splendor.’ – Deuteronomy 33:26

If you read the rest of Psalm 68, you will notice that the author is worshiping God for the great things that He has done. Isn’t it amazing that our God, the God of heaven and earth, the One who made everything in this universe, takes the time to ride the skies to come to our help? I don’t know about you, but that makes me want to worship Him as well, because there it humbles me to know that I have a God, and not only a God, but a Father who cares for me. 

God is not only God, He is also a Father, and He is a Father who cares for us. If something bothers you, it bothers Him as well. That’s a Father. Jesus in the gospels never referred to God as anything else except His Father, there was only one time He called God, God. And that was when He was hanging on the Cross, when He took the full penalty and payment of sin and became sin itself, and the Father had to turn His face away, that’s when Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Mark 15:34)

Father to the orphans

You know when Jesus died, it is as though He gave up His sonship, becoming nothing but a slave, not claiming equality with God, and He emptied Himself of everything. (Philippians 2:7) Jesus became an orphan, so that you and I can become the adopted children of God. He made Himself a Father to the fatherless, we were so lost in our sins, all like sheep gone astray, turning each on our own ways, and He stooped down, to embrace us.

Hallelujah, what an image! In a world that is so hungry for the love of a father, so hungry for the love of a mother, the Lord God makes Himself a Father to us. This is why He is amazing. He goes beyond adopting us, you can adopt a child, but you can never make them your own, you can treat him like your own, you can love him like your own, you can lavish him like your own, but there will always be a distance there, because he knows, there is a void, a gap in the relationship.

But God did what no psychologist or child therapist could do, He not only adopted us as His sons, He gave us the Spirit of Sonship, a seal upon our hearts! (Romans 8:15) This Spirit allows us to take ownership of the Father, we reap the blessing that has come to us while Jesus was cursed at the cross, while He cried; “My God, My God!” we cry out, “My Father, my Father.”

That in times when you feel abandoned, when mummy and daddy has turned their back on you, when you remember the death of a parent, the Spirit of Sonship allows you to cry out to God, to Your Father, “Abba, Abba; Daddy, Papa, why have You so loved me?” This is our God! This is His working, only He can do such a thing, and He receives all the credit!

Defender of the widow

The Hebrew word for widow does not only denote a woman whose husband has died, but also a woman who cannot provide and sustain herself financially. If you are struggling in the area of finance, let me tell you that you have a God who owns all the gold in the world, He not only owns the gold, He is the source and power of wealth itself, He gives power to us to prosper. (Deuteronomy 8:18)

Now, I don’t want to open a place for Bible bashing here, so I’m gonna say very straightforwardly that I’m not after the gold, I’m after God. He is the One who gives us power to get wealth. This is not a prosperity gospel, but let me tell you this, the Bible is filled with instances where God had blessed people financially, and have multiplied their wealth.

Lack is not the will of God. I repeat, it is not the will of God. And God wants to bless us. He defends the cause of those who are afflicted; those who are struggling to make ends meet, those who are scratching their heads when the bills come, and those who are crying over a pile of statements from the bank to the electrical supplier.

He is a Defender, and He defends you. That’s His job. Allow Him to do it and He’ll do it for you. Even for the literal widow, He made Himself a Groom to her; through the means of the Church.  When God wanted to make Eve, He took the rib from his side and made a wife out of it, when God wanted to make a bride for the second Adam; Jesus Christ, He took it from His side as well, blood and water flowed from the side of Christ.

This new bride is not tainted with sin; she is washed with the blood of Jesus, free from the bondages of sin, and sanctified with the water of the Word of God. When God does something, He does it perfectly, He does not leave any area of mistakes, we may make mistakes but not Him, He does it wonderfully and gloriously, as the psalmist says, He rides the ancient skies, to come to our help.

Homemaker

The beginning of this year was horrible for me; there were so many tensions in the home and in my life that I was contemplating suicide. I felt so alone, and so abandoned. I honestly felt as though God was playing my life like a yo-yo, with ups and downs all the time. Every single time I thought that the situation could not get worst, it worsened, and it ripped me apart.

I started questioning the existence and the nature of this God that I had always known and loved. In the end, He taught me something that I would never forget, that He was my home and that was all I needed. Many today are lonely. We do not know what’s happening when they’re alone in their homes, in their rooms. With the lights off, a bottle of pills, a gun, a rope, a razor, hurting, crying, hating.

But God knows, and His unfailing love has seen the situation, in His boundless grace and mercy He craves to make a home for such, He aches to see His children in pain, He reminds us time and time again that we are not alone, that we have Him. He even had the audacity to abandon and forsake His Son, to show us how much He loved us, to turn towards us and bring us back into His loving arms.

He makes a home for us in His heart, through His Spirit. It is one thing to make a house, or to build a house, but it is another to have a home. They’re similar but two different things, a house is the physical building and the home is people in the household. Even then, there might be people living in homes, but still feel all alone.

In these quiet times, in the darkness of our souls, He whispers softly into the ears of the lonely, “I am here, always here. I have always been here and am here and will always be here.” He goes to the extent of making His home in us, through the Spirit. Jesus says, “Make your home in me, as I make mine in you.” (John 15:4) It is only in Christ that we can feel truly at home. And our hearts are a place where He wants to be.

Liberator

‘Who the Son sets free, is free indeed.’ (John 8:36) Part of Jesus’ messianic mission was to set captives free, it was His job to proclaim liberty and lose the bonds of those who are tied down in sin, shame, and defeat. (Luke 4:18) While He walked on the earth, He liberated many people, from death, from sicknesses and diseases, from condemnation, and from sins.

The climax was when He rose from the dead, forever breaking the chains of death; He destroyed everything that came through the curse of Adam’s sin. Jesus was trapped, so that we might never be placed in manipulative situations, He was bound in chains so that today, we may walk free, to lift up our hands and worship God, to help others, and to lose their chains as well.

Whatever it is that may be attacking you today, or keeping you as it’s prisoner, Jesus is here and available to liberate you and set you free from it. The blood of Jesus that was shed 2000 years ago on that Cross is still available for our liberation today. How can we not rejoice? This is truly Good News for the believer!

Like I said, there is nothing bad in the Gospel of Christ, there is nothing ill in the Good News, and it is all good. We are on the receiving end, all this goodness flow to us through faith, we access them by faith, for there is always good for those who love God. He works all things together for the good of those who love Him. (Romans 8:28)

Together with the psalmist we respond to God in the responsorial psalm today:

Kingdoms of the earth sing to God!

May Jesus Christ be praised!
Francisco Overee

Oh dear, what have we been preaching?

God is love. – 1 John 4:16

From the cries of the preacher to the placard in the hand of a street evangelizer, from the tweet of the average Christian trying to survive the day to the messages given on mega-churches, the call has always been the same and will always be the same: God loves you. I remember once a priest said in my community Mass that the world that rejects God is so hungry to hear that God loves them.

It seems to me that there is an importance of this knowledge on believers and non-believers alike, and that is the knowledge of the love of God for them. What bothers me is the cry of some who talk about our love for God. Can we truly love God fully? Can we ever come to the fullness of extent in our love for Him? I personally don’t believe that we can.

If we could, there would be no need for the Cross. The fact is that we can’t love God as we ought. We can’t love with all our heart, all of our soul and all our strength. (Deuteronomy 6:5) We can’t! The rules, regulations and ordinances of the Law are all perfect, because the Giver of it is perfect, we could try all we want with our own efforts and we will never be able to do so. 

How then can we come to obeying God? How can we possible love this God that is perfect since we ourselves are imperfect in every area, the Bible says very clearly that even if we tried to obey the Law and broke one of its righteous demands we are guilty of breaking it all. (James 2:10) The preaching of rules and regulations, that condemning tone that I find so often simply does not work.

The answer can be found in St. John’s epistle, thank God for this insight. The key to pleasing the Father and living a powerful and impacting life as a Christian comes from a revelation of the love of God. And since God is love as St. John puts it, then the Christian needs a revelation of God Himself. The problem is we hear so many things about God that we forget who God is.

It’s not difficult to love God with everything that we have when we come to the realization of who God really is, hidden in the Old Testament, revealed in the New Testament and brought to light through the presence of the Holy Spirit here on earth in this age. The God that is revealed in the Bible is summed up in three little words; God is love. Yet we make it so complicated.

What does it mean that God is love? It means that He is all love; He is nothing more and nothing less than love itself. What is love then? It is impossible to define love in a sentence; our minds are too primitive to understand love, for to understand love would mean to have a full understanding of who God is. We can’t taste love, we can’t smell love, we can’t test it in labs, but we can definitely feel it, and we can give and receive love.

However it has not stopped people from defining what love is, the writings that have spewed out of love are immense, it is as wide as God Himself. Man has tried to understand love and he has tried to understand God, I think if we fully understood what love is and who God is, we’d die, out of love. There would be such an overflow. The Song of Songs states, ‘many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.’ (Song of Songs 8:7)

The Youcat defines love as ‘the free self-giving of the heart.’ (Youcat 402) Even this is just a glimpse of what love truly is. It cannot be defined. But we can definitely expound of examples of love, other glimpses of love. The slightest glimpse of love could bring one to tears, for love is moving, alive and active, ready to work, goodness and kindness flows with it.

We look at Scriptures and we see glimpses of love in action, we catch just a slight knowledge of this love. The Bible is full of instances in which God shows His undying love for His people. For one, we know that God sent His one and only Son into this world out of love. (John 3:16) We also know that it was love that led Jesus to the Cross. (John 15:13)

Why is the revelation of love so important? It is because in this revelation of love that we are empowered to live a more meaningful Christian life, it is in this love that we can come to participate in the life of God, it is this that pushes forward in the hard times, and it is love that allows us to fall in love with God. And love for God is fulfillment of the Law of God. (Romans 13:10)

Isn’t that what we want? We want people to come to Church, obey her rules and commands, live righteously and be good citizens. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I want the best for the Church too! But where is the power in doing that? Day in and day out, we hear speakers and leaders, screaming vehemently at our congregations, both young and old, “You need to love God! You need to obey His commands! You need to keep the laws!”

And beneath the pulpit, in the pews, we have a generation of people who honestly want to love God, genuinely want to do good by Him but don’t have the slightest idea on how to do it! Isn’t that sad? I saddens me when I hear sermons and sessions like this being preached, “You need to love God! How can you love Him and know Him when you don’t even open your Bibles?” “Can you claim to be a Christian if you come for Mass late?” “How can you possibly love God if you don’t even pay attention at Mass? But you need to love God!”

My goodness, how will the people be empowered to love? They can’t! They’re hearing of a God who is constantly looking at their mistakes and wrongdoings, faults and sins, they’re listening of a God who is on a sin hunt, a dictator is finding fault with them. Isn’t that the God that we portray? And we sit in our meeting rooms wondering why the attendance is so low, why the youth groups are dead and why we seem to see the same old people serving in every single ministry.

Don’t get me wrong, don’t misquote me, I am all for repentance, and I am against sin. I am for the obedience of the Law, I am for all the good stuff, but I am also for the Lord, and I stand with what He has to say and what He has said. Sometimes we get so caught up in repentance and sin that we forget that the grace of God is greater, so much more greater than all our sin!(Romans 5:20, 6:1)

We forget to reveal the grace of God, the love of God to our people and we get into revealing their sins and all their misconduct, their faults and wrongdoings. We need to start getting back to the love of God; we need to put more love in our preaching; more love. Because shouting at the top of your lungs on repentance and sin will only chase the people away, don’t blame them when they get to hear the grace of God being preached in another church, another denomination or another congregation.

Beloved, have you not heard that it is the goodness of God that leads one to repentance? (Romans 2:4) Maybe you didn’t read that, I’m gonna put it in bold now, it is the goodness of God that leads one to repentance. Understand that, don’t just read through it, let it sink into your spirit; meditate on it till you get it. And then, maybe you need to do some repenting, in your way of thinking.

The goodness of God is found in His love, and there is such a need today, in the world and in our communities, to reveal the love of God. Stop telling them about their love for God, how shallow or how deep it may be because they don’t have the ability and the power to love God, we need to start telling them of God’s love for them, expound to them the greatness of His love and tell them stories of the goodness of Jesus in the gospels.

It is so important for them to have a revelation of who God is, what His love is like. His tangible and ever present love is available through the Holy Spirit today. The love of God has been poured, shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. (Romans 5:5) Tell them about how much God loves them despite their failure, how He came to die on a Cross while we were still helpless, yes, while we were still sinners. (Romans 5:8)

Tell them how love prompted Jesus to give us the gift of the Holy Eucharist, how the God of all wonders and majesty comes to dwell in the lowly forms of bread and wine, comes to stay with us. Let’s scream to them about how every time we celebrate the Mass we are proclaiming His death, the same that death that was inspired and commanded by love, out of love, in love and through love.

Maybe then they will have more reverence when we expose Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, maybe then they would focus on the love divine that is so humbly contained in the monstrance. Maybe then we will have a generation of people ready to serve the Lord in every area possible, maybe then we will see a boost in vocations and to the priesthood and the religious life.

Let’s stop telling them about their sins and shortcomings, lets lavish on them the love and grace of God that is so much more greater than their sins! I believe that Jesus would have done the same thing, cause I never read of Jesus confronting the sin of the sinners of His time, but we see Him confronting the sinners of the self riighteous. He was just present to them, telling them of the grace of God, telling them of His goodness. And we see the change that He has made.

We need to start sharing the Gospel. It is the Good News after all. What’s so bad about the Gospel that we see people running away from our Churches, running away from our ministries? There is nothing bad in God, and there is nothing ill in the Gospel, maybe it’s the wrong Gospel that we’ve been preaching. So let’s return to the one that Jesus preached the grace and the love of God.

May Jesus Christ be praised!

Francisco Overee

Attitude problem?

God has had it with the proud, but takes delight in just plain people. - 1 Peter 5:5


Have you ever met someone who refused to accept correction? People who think that you are not in a position to correct them because you're not above them? I have. And I'm quite irritated by it. For one, I get all kinds of silly reasons for being a person who is critical and opinionated in every situation. I have been labelled with all kinds of tags and qualities. 


It seems I give off a bad energy and the way I move my eyebrows is aggressive. To be honest, I just think those reasons are down right silly and ridiculous. You can't judge someone's character based on how they move their eyebrows, its just not right. And also hilarious. I was going through the readings for the day and found out some really good advice on leadership. 


As Christians we are all called to lead. God says that we are the head and not the tail. (Deuteronomy 28:13) Leading and Discipleship is one of the main callings of the Christian, we are all called to lead in one way or another, this may not be specifically in the church office or ministry, but in other places like leading someone to the Father's heart, leading them to the Throne of Grace or leading them to accept Christ. 


These forms of leadership are noble and powerful. The Gospel Reading for the day speaks of Jesus commanding the apostles to go out into the world preaching the gospel to them and baptising them, leading them to Himself. (Mark 16:15) Like I said, leadership is not neccesarily part of ministry work, leadership also comes in the simple areas of our lives. 


But I want to speak of ministry today, what is the attitude that we need to have in ministry? Is it the kind that picks on the faults of others, judging them based on the way their outward appearances, prideful in the heart? What should be the attitude of the Christian based on the Word of God? Not on my word, but on the Bible, what does it say to us about leadership. 


The Bible is filled with great leaders of the faith and we need to learn from them and not make the same mistakes that they did , even if we do fall into those traps, we need to pick ourselves up and continue walking with the Lord. What angers and irritates me though, is the attitude that refuses to be corrected, by those who are younger for the sole reason that they are young. 


You know, Jesus never compromised when it came to the Kingdom of God , it was that important. Even when the leaders of His day was so against Him, He went on on His ministry work and preached even stronger. Jesus knew that they were out to find fault with Him and yet He maintained His message when it came to self-righteousness and things of the same manner. 


Is it wrong to correct, to stop something is deemed wrong if an elder person does it? I don't think so. St Paul speaks very plainly to Timothy in these regard, "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young." (1 Timothy 4:12) There is a place for young people in the Church and they have a say in the matters of the Church. When someone corrects another person, whether they are young or old, the correction should be given and received in love. 


There shouldn't be this prejudice of hierarchy. I don't believe that it is hierarchy, I believe that it is pride that does not want to be corrected, the spirit that thinks that it is always right, and that it alone is perfect, taking the place of Jesus, glorifying itself. It is evil. I will go out to say that. The spirit that does not want to be teachable, it's horrible.  


Pride goes before the destruction, the bigger the ego the harder the crash. (Proverbs 16:18) That attitude that refuses to be corrected will one day be gutted out and be shown in the public, God will make what was done in secret to be an opened spectacle, out of their own mouth comes judgement. 


God has had it with the proud, He shuns them. Are youths in their rightful position when they correct someone? Yes, they are! If they are prompted by the Holy Spirit. No one can take that away from them, the question is simple, are we humble enough to accept it. It's really not a question of judging another persons actions, it's a question of humility. 


I really don't get people who think that we are judging them when we correct them. This is not of God, God Himself judged all our sins at the cross of Calvary and we have no part in that judgement, we are not called to judge. We are called to exhort and encourage, if you think we are judging you then you have a personal spiritual problem, that's what I gather, the feeling that you are always being judged for what you do. 


So what is our attitude in ministry? I think we need to learn from Jesus. 


May Jesus Christ be praised! 
Francisco Overee

Meet me halfway

The wind was strong and the sea was getting rough. - John 6:18 


I seriously don't know how to start this blog post. I'm having a writers block but I really want to update my blog, so I guess I'm just gonna go into the gist of what I plan to say on this blog in regards to this particular text from the Gospel of the day. 


We know that the disciples were getting on the boat in the evening and wanting to get to Capernaum with Him, it was on the other side of the lake. We also know from the writings of John that Jesus had not even joined them on the boat and yet they had rowed three to four miles into the lake to get to the other side. (John 6:16-17) This baffles me, what on earth were they thinking? 


I mean, Jesus wasn't even on the boat and they had rowed three to four miles into the lake. What's worst was that it was getting dark and the Scriptures says that the wind was strong and getting rough? How on earth were they gonna get Jesus on the boat? Three or four miles is quite a distance, were they expecting Jesus to fly into the boat or something, I know they just saw the Lord perform the miracle of the multiplication of loaves, but I can't stop myself from thinking, were they deliberately testing the Lord? 


We'll never know because the Scriptures never said what they were thinking or feeling, but what I can say is this, Jesus supernaturally naturally met them in the boat, He was walking on the waters of the lake and it frightened them. (John 6:19) What can we learn from this incident? I was doing some reflecting on it and this is what I got. 


In life, we're all on a spiritual journey, our relationship with Jesus Christ can be seen as a journey, a journey of faith, the daily walk we take with God is beautiful journey. But sometimes, we tend to drift away, we tend to backslide, take the journey with our own understanding and try to walk ourselves without Jesus on our side. That's when we start to see winds getting strong and the journey getting rough. 


Some may even describe it as a time of darkness, the dark night of the soul as St. John of the Cross would say. In this time of tribulation, we may question the presence of Jesus in our lives, is He really there with us. Most of the time if not always these problems are of our own doing, we have dug the holes for ourselves and we are in it ourselves. 


But you know, Jesus is the kind of God that does not let us go on our own, even though we may think that we know better and go ahead of Him to arrive in our destinations, Jesus has a much better plan, and when we're stuck in the middle of everything, He comes to us to save us, in our fear and sorrow the words of Jesus permeates the darkness of our souls and give us courage and confidence to look towards Him and take Him by the hand again. 


Jesus says, "Do not be afraid, it is only me." (John 6:20) You see, God is not one who allows us to be in the messes of our lives, He always wants the best for us, He expects to be in the best, the default nature of the Christian is to be highly favored, deeply loved and greatly blessed. There is a position of favor in which we are all called to partake in, and that is in Jesus Christ. 


When you are in this position you will rest completely and not even work, you may be working but you won't feel the burden, you may be laboring but enjoying it, you will not eat your bread by the sweat of your brow for Christ the risen one has redeemed you from that curse. There is a place of favor. Look at the Gospel reading, the disciples reached the shore at the place they were making for in no time! (John 6:21) 


Why is this so? They had only gone into the lake for about three to four miles, and yet they had arrived at the shore of where they were heading to. Now they were at the show of the Tiberias (John 6:1) and this is approximately 8 miles to where they were heading; Capernaum. It's amazing that they only rowed three to four miles into the lake and they'd already arrived at the place where they wanted to go! 


This shows us that in Jesus Christ there is no time and season, no place and displacement! It doesn't matter where you are in life right now, you may think you have backslidden, drifted as far as you can, aloft from the Throne of God, but let me tell you this, God can meet you at any place and any time, in any season and state of your life. He's done it in the natural, He'll do it in the supernatural. 


He really doesn't care about what you've done or where you've been, God is more concerned about your well being than He is about your filthy rags. He can meet you in any place, no matter how big the mess is, God is bigger and greater than the mess, the wind and the waves cannot hold Him back from getting to you. You may seem lost now, but hold on, He's coming. 


His life giving words are going to permeate through all that darkness and gloom and rescue you from the very things you are afraid of. God is in the business of saving and redeeming, He wants to bring you higher places, deeper depths of His grace. There is so much more of His abundant grace that what we see today. 


It doesn't matter if you feel lost today, learn from Scripture and respond in faith: 


May your love be upon us, O Lord, as we place all our hope in you. - Response for the day


May Jesus Christ be praised! 
Francisco Overee 

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