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Reflection on Jn 17:11
Post date: 2015-07-05Autor: BCP
Jn 17:11 in the Greek original reads: “...keep them in Your name, which You have given Me...” It means that the disciples must be kept in the name of the Father, which Jesus bears. Verse 26 specifies the primary meaning of verse 11 which shows that Jesus has made known the Father’s name in His name: “I made known to them Your name, and I will continue to make it known.” So this indicates a process of knowing the depth of the name of God – Yehoshua, which Jesus makes known through the Holy Spirit. This knowledge is connected with the love of the Father towards the Son as well as the love of the Father and the Son towards us. The culmination is the dwelling of Christ in the soul of a disciple which is conditioned by the process of knowing the divine name ever more deeply.
Reflection on Jn 17:3
Post date: 2015-06-20Autor: BCP
Jesus speaks about eternal life which is connected with the knowing of God the Father, and with the knowing of Jesus Christ. We may know God – Jesus Christ even now in prayer, in reading the Gospel, in suffering and especially when we renounce our own will and make an act of love by accepting the will of God by faith and in self-surrender. Jesus spoke about eternal life even before, when He said: The Father has given the Son authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as He has given Him.
What accord has Christ with Belial?
Post date: 2015-06-16Autor: BCP
What accord has Christ with Belial? We can never say that Christianity and paganism are equal ways to salvation! Salvation is only in Jesus. If pagan ways led to salvation, Christ would not have come to our earth and died for our sins. But, as the Scripture says, He came and endured pain, suffering and humiliation to save us and to deliver us from darkness and from the slavery of the devil.
Sense of the essence
Post date: 2015-06-13Autor: BCP
We need to know the essence so that we may be witnesses in the place where we are. Everyone should ask for the power of the Holy Spirit to be an evangelist, teacher or prophet at a particular place. We must be full of the Holy Spirit, we must be witnesses to Christ, we must have a sense of the essence. We shape our environment above all by the example of our life. There are just a few essential truths to live: to learn to deny yourself in little things, to learn to pray, to find time for prayer and to rely on God.
Because you received the Word of God as the Word of God...
Post date: 2015-06-12Autor: BCP
We must receive the Word of God as the Word of God, the simple truths of the Gospel of God as they are presented to us by Jesus. If we follow Him in earnest and take His Word seriously, if we deny ourselves and take up our cross, God gives us true wisdom and true knowledge, as the Apostle Paul says: “We do not preach the wisdom of the world but the wisdom of God.” Every Christian should have such wisdom.
Our attitude must be unwavering
Post date: 2015-06-09Autor: BCP
What is it in us!? Conscience, the voice of God, on the one hand and the poison of sin on the other. If people hear lies, they gladly believe in them. On the other hand, they keep questioning the truth. They even question the truths of our salvation – maybe it is true, maybe not… Our attitude must be unwavering: “Jesus said it and it is true! I won’t invent anything! He who believes will be saved; but he who does not believe will go to hell.”
When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will do it
Post date: 2015-05-25Autor: BCP
One can live in a community which has received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, who wants to guide us into all truth. We are slaves of sin and deceit, and only Jesus can make us free, no one else. He does so through His Spirit who guides us into His Word and into communion with Him, Jesus.
Reflection on Jn 16:33
Post date: 2015-05-23Autor: BCP
True happiness on this earth does not lie in abundance of property, wealth or career but in true peace. We can find this peace only in Christ. Supposing we seek it somewhere else or in someone else, we will not find it. We can by no means find this peace in the world. In the world we will only have tribulation. We must know it. There is no peace in the glory of the world, in vanity or in sin.
The poison of original sin
Post date: 2015-05-16Autor: BCP
The poison of original sin is in every one of us. This is in us and the devil laughs. Unless we fight against sin, pride and lusts for all our life, we can easily lapse into heresy. If we believe ourselves, we destroy ourselves. That is the poison in us and we have to fight with it continuously because it leads us to self-destruction. We must carry it as a cross, not unite with it but resist it. “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus!”
Reflection on Jn 16:32
Post date: 2015-05-09Autor: BCP
Jesus knew the weakness of the apostles and He knows our weakness too. In a crisis, our old nature – i.e. our soul infected by original sin – gives way to fear and does not believe in Christ and His Word.Where will the apostles flee? What does “one’s own” mean in spiritual terms? It is the innermost of our heart. The Greek original of the Bible expresses it with the term “eis ta idia”.
How very needful it is to follow Him
Post date: 2015-05-08Autor: BCP
Life is so short! We know neither the day nor the hour. Therefore we need to be prepared at all times for the moment when we shall depart this life. We must be in Christ even here on earth and carry all our crosses and burdens with a living faith. Jesus says: “Deny yourself and take up your cross; do not be in depression, take up your cross and follow Me – Jesus.” How very needful it is to follow Him! It is an everyday way of the cross. Lord, what is my cross? How should I deny myself? In little things – you thus get to the level where the power of sin does not work, you get out of your nature and enter into communion with Jesus.
Learn one thing
Post date: 2015-04-30Autor: BCP
Whenever a problem arises, our old self automatically begins to complain against God, swear or be distressed. Learn one thing: Deny yourself and give thanks. “Lord, thank You for this cross – for getting a scolding again, for missing my bus…” You only need to give thanks and God will enlighten you: “Look, such bad thing would have happened to you there, it could have such and such consequences…” And you suddenly realize numbers of other things related to it.
Christ died for sinners – of whom I am the worst
Post date: 2015-04-28Autor: BCP
The Apostle Paul said: Christ died for sinners – of whom I am the worst. No false mysticism. He did not consider himself a super saint. Holiness consists in humility, in realizing the truth that every day I am self-willed, every day my soul automatically produces sin, I condemn others in my thoughts, I am a hedonist.
Reflection on Jn 16:23-24
Post date: 2015-04-25Autor: BCP
The night before His death, Jesus emphasizes several times that we should ask in His name. He also speaks about true love for God which consists in keeping His commandments.
Why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?
Post date: 2015-04-15Autor: BCP
Why are you weeping? We should weep over our sins. How many abortions, how many sins there have been in Ukraine...Whom are you seeking? Jesus! And whom are we seeking? How often we seek pleasure, money, human praise, vanity... But all glory is senseless. We should seek God, seek the truth, seek moral values, seek what gives us eternal life, and our eternal life is in Jesus. Our heart should ache at the living Christ being cast out of the souls. Without Him there is no eternal life, without Him there is eternal punishment and moral devastation.
Reflection on Jn 16:12-13
Post date: 2015-04-11Autor: BCP
Jesus says these words on the evening before His death. It is good to read again and again the words of Christ spoken on the evening before His death (chapters 13-17). There is a great depth in these five chapters. We can read them over and over again. Each sentence communicates a deep mystery. Let us realize that these words spoken by Jesus were immediately followed by the events of chapters 18 and 19, which describe the suffering and death of Jesus, and then by the events related to His resurrection in chapters 20 and 21. Try to read at least one of the three chapters (14 or 15 or 16) once a week, e.g. after the holy hour, and perceive the deep truths which Jesus highlights repeatedly: we should abide in Him, He abides in us and we in Him – the parable of the vine and the branches. The word “abide” is important. It is not enough to begin something. We need to continue, to remain united to Christ, to abide in Him and in His name.
Jesus is in you
Post date: 2015-03-31Autor: BCP
God gave us freedom and this freedom is in Jesus. If we received Him and allow Him to be the Lord of our soul every day, we taste true freedom. God is almighty and so is everyone who prays because he has Jesus in his heart. If you unite your will to the will of God, the enemy has no power over you and the whole mountains of demons must retreat.
Let us live by faith
Post date: 2015-03-30Autor: BCP
At the hour of death we shall stand before the judgment seat of God. There is nothing covered that will not be revealed. Not only the camera of our conscience but also God and His angels see us. Therefore we should live by faith.
Reflection on Jn 16:9-11
Post date: 2015-03-28Autor: BCP
There are people who say: I have no sin; I have not killed anyone, nor robbed anyone. I am an honest citizen, I don’t need God. But it is a lie. Moreover, such person has all the greater sin because he rejects Christ. Not to believe in Christ, the Son of God and the Saviour, is a sin! The saving faith means to believe in Christ, the Son of God, who died for our sins, as well as to believe that He is with us.
The death of Jesus – the victory over sin and the devil
Post date: 2015-03-27Autor: BCP
Through baptism we were immersed in the death of Jesus. His death is a victory over sin and the devil. We should actualize this mystery of baptism by faith so that in our everyday life we might taste more and more this victory over the system of evil and lies which dominate the world.