“It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

“It is to the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a detour around it.” ― Hans Urs von Balthasar (Swiss theologian and priest)

(Scripture text: Dt 30:15-20)

Moses said to the people:

“Today I have set before you

life and prosperity, death and doom.

If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,

which I enjoin on you today,

loving him, and walking in his ways,

and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,

you will live and grow numerous,

and the LORD, your God,

will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.

If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen,

but are led astray and adore and serve other gods,

I tell you now that you will certainly perish;

you will not have a long life

on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.

I call heaven and earth today to witness against you:

I have set before you life and death,

the blessing and the curse.

Choose life, then,

that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God,

heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.

For that will mean life for you,

a long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore

he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

We have a choice every day to live in the way of the Lord.  An opportunity that should not be wasted.  In a world of temptation and negative influence, we must rise above and become the best people we can be. 

Its important to keep in mind that we cannot remain where we are; we are always on the way, walking resolutely with Jesus toward Jerusalem.  For us, it is the New Jerusalem, and so we walk with confidence and hope, knowing that Jesus both walks with us and goes before us.  Christ summons us daily out of our tiny, narrow, self-centered world into the much larger arena of salvation -- involving the whole human race.  We are called to die to what is secure and familiar.  We are called to die to what is narrow and selfish.  We are called to die to the tiny, false life of self preoccupation and self preservation.

Truly, when we respond to the summons to choose true life, we enter into the joy that no one can ever take away from us! 

It is important, I believe, that we take some time to examine our lives, noticing where lies our resistance to the call of Christ, and doing something, however insignificant, to break down any barriers we have placed in the way of Christ's desire to serve others in and through us.