The Tribune

By Rev. Angela Palacious

Mid-Lent is a good time to determine what we need to re-focus on before Easter comes. We are all at different stages in our spiritual journeys, and the key is for each of us to move to a new experience of death, at some level, in order to enjoy resurrection to new life, in some way.

For those who have not yet made an initial commitment, or who need to re-dedicate their lives to God, there is a special prayer or collect: “O God whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son.” (Anglican Prayer Book). God desires this from everyone.

Once this step has been taken, there is ongoing instruction offered by the Holy Spirit concerning the challenges and blessings of such a commitment. In Jesus Christ, we learn that suffering and rejection was the road he walked, and we are also expected to do the same: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8: 34).

Even our closest friends may be used by Satan to tempt us to disobey God, and we are to be ready to resist just as Jesus disregarded Peter’s rebuke concerning the need to die on the cross: “Get behind me Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (Mark 8: 33). The question to ask ourselves is: “What is my mind set on?”

If your choice is to set it on divine things it means: you are honest when others steal, are faithful when others cheat, are truthful when others lie, are forgiving, patient and kind when others are vindictive, impatient and cruel. You wait for God and do it God’s way even if it means being opposed, ridiculed, ostracized, persecuted, or even martyred. Growing in grace now refers to more obvious obedience. The question to ask is: “What is my cross, and am I carrying it courageously?”

The blessings of devotion are enunciated in Romans 8: 31-39. We have the promise of a future in which we will be given “everything else” (v. 32); there is no need to be burdened by sin already confessed as Christ now intercedes for us (v. 34); and in the midst of great suffering (“hardship, or distress or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword”, v. 35), we have the assurance of an inseparable love bond (v. 39). In fact, St. Paul says that “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (v. 37). Are you equally convinced that this is true for you no matter what you are facing?

The more you grow in grace, the more the lord will counsel you (Ps. 16:7); your heart will be glad and your spirit rejoicing, with your body resting in hope (v. 9), because you have come to trust God as Abraham did when he was asked by God to sacrifice Isaac (Gen 22:1-14). By this point, you can say to the Lord as the psalmist did “you will show me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy, and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11). The question for us to consider for the rest of the week is: “Am I growing in grace, and helping others to do the same?”