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Reflection on Rom 8:23
Post date: 2020-04-04Autor: BCP
We are approaching the culmination of Lent. The worldwide coronavirus quarantine forces us to think about death. Let us make the most of it. Some few people die of the coronavirus, but none of us shall avoid death after all. Death, however, is not the worst thing; the worst thing is the death of an unrepentant sinner because he loses eternal life. Let us devote especially these last two weeks of Lent to the prayer of the Stations of the Cross with songs during the holy hour.
Reflection on Rom 8:17
Post date: 2020-03-12Autor: BCP
The example of the martyrs shows us that to suffer with Christ means to obtain eternal glory and that even amidst the most terrible suffering, which makes us tremble with fear, the Lord Jesus gives the strength. Let us remember that He is with us even amidst our little sufferings. But we mostly suffer without Christ. Often in bitterness, hatred, obstinacy, or seeking a false way out in sin. The martyr Arcadius could have escaped suffering if he had bowed down to the pagan gods – modern Pachamama. Those, however, who worship them will be where they are – in hell. By contrast, those who suffer with Christ will live in the eternal glory of heaven, and that is a big difference! Each of us personally must make a choice. May we always choose Christ in our life trials!
Reflection on Rom 8:16
Post date: 2020-02-26Autor: BCP
Let us realize that the Spirit of God is in us. But let us also realize that the deepest part of our being is our spirit. What is the difference between our soul and our spirit? Both are spiritual and it is hard to distinguish between them. The soul has God-given powers, but the spirit is the pure “self”, the deepest essence of our being. At the same time, it is the opposite of the negative self, the so-called old self, ego, which binds and substitutes for the spirit. Our spirit longs for God as the magnetic needle always points to the North, because God is our beginning, and we are created in His image having an immortal spirit.
Reflection on Rom 8:15
Post date: 2020-02-13Autor: BCP
Jesus is the Heavenly Father’s own firstborn Son, true God and true man, and through faith in Christ we receive adoption as sons, we become children of God. As it is written in the following verses, we are heirs of God, heirs of God’s kingdom, and so we can call God our Father like Jesus, and even intimately “Abba”, “Daddy”. This is great dignity! But there is one problem – we always forget who we are. We forget who created us, who our true Father is. We also forget at what price we were redeemed from sin so as not to be its slaves anymore, and we forget our ultimate end, our true homeland and true home which Jesus prepared for us in heaven.
Reflection on Rom 8:14
Post date: 2020-02-01Autor: BCP
Bear in mind for the following two weeks, when reciting the Word of God, who you are. You are a son (daughter) of God. Through baptism and faith you have the life of God. And therefore you need to be led by the Spirit of God, and not by the spirit of the world. Try to bear it in mind in your private prayer too. Recite the word of life also before you fall asleep.
Reflection on Rom 8:11
Post date: 2019-12-28Autor: BCP
Let us be aware that the Spirit of God who dwells in the Father also dwells in us through the saving faith. This Spirit raised the Lord Jesus from the dead when He was dead physically. By the same power by which He raised Christ from the dead, this Spirit of God will now not raise us physically, because we are still in the flesh, but He will give us life already now. What does it mean that He will give us life? This is the crucial question. Our main focus will no longer be the spirit of the world, our selfish interests, or service to the system and spirit of darkness which enslaves man by sin and leads to destruction. He will give us life so that while we are in the flesh, amidst our life’s trial, we may no longer live our own life but rather live according to God’s plan; live a different life, a life for God and for the salvation of our soul and of the souls of our neighbours.
Reflection on Rom 8:10
Post date: 2019-12-14Autor: BCP
Without repentance and without putting God’s Word into practice there is no spiritual life; there is only stagnation because we do not allow the Spirit of God to live in us. Thus at the same time we do not allow Jesus Christ to work in us and through us. The very secret of a victorious life lies not only in the receiving of or the baptism with the Holy Spirit – this is just the beginning – but it is necessarily connected with walking in the Spirit, in the Spirit of truth, who unites us to Jesus through the cross. Then Jesus can live and suffer in us for the sake of the salvation of souls, especially those in our immediate surroundings, so that we may truly become living atoning sacrifices.
Reflection on Rom 8:9
Post date: 2019-11-30Autor: BCP
Let me ask the essential question: Are these words, saying that I am not in the flesh, really true about me? Does the Spirit of God dwell in me? Is it not the mind and spirit of the world that rules in me? The sign of the Spirit of God really dwelling in me is that I allow Him to work in prayer as well as in decision-making; in other words, I live according to the Spirit. How shall we obtain the Spirit of Christ?
Word of Life – Rom 8:7-8 (17/11/2019 – 1/12/2019)
Post date: 2019-11-16Autor: BCP
“Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
Reflection on Rom 8:7-8
Post date: 2019-11-16Autor: BCP
The carnal mind is synonymous with the mind of the old self. The old self embodies the connection between the carnal mind and mental life, which only affects the horizontal. The old self philosophizes about purely human values and things but ignores or even rejects God’s truths and God’s commandments. The mind of the old self, i.e. of the flesh, revolves only around its own false interests but constantly boycotts the most important thing, namely the salvation of the soul. The focus of the carnal mind is its own human pride, career, self-divinization and practical independence from God.
Reflection on Rom 8:5-6
Post date: 2019-11-02Autor: BCP
We need to realize again that setting our minds on the things of the Spirit and living according to the Spirit is connected with the law of the Spirit. And the law of the Spirit is essentially connected with Jesus, it is in Him. Those who are in Christ are spiritually rather than carnally minded – that means, they do not set their minds on themselves but on Jesus. Their focus is not on their self-realization or their ego but on true good – spiritual good. However, they need not care about obtaining it. Our main concern must be to have a true relationship to Jesus, to love God, and to love our neighbour as ourselves.
Reflection on Rom 8:3
Post date: 2019-10-05Autor: BCP
Invisible spiritual reality which blinds our mind, paralyses our will and drags us to both temporal and eternal destruction is indeed the greatest problem which all mankind and every individual is faced with. The solution to this problem is found neither in Buddha nor in Muhammad nor in Freud nor in Rousseau nor in Zen meditations or yoga practices. The solution is found only and only in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became man, took flesh without sin, to carry all sins of mankind to the cross in His flesh and to pay for them with His death. Jesus is not only true man but He is also true God, and therefore He is the only Saviour of mankind and there is salvation in no one else but Him (Acts 4:12). Jesus overcame on Calvary; He conquered sin and the devil, but this victory is in Him alone
Reflection on Rom 8:1-2 (+video)
Post date: 2019-09-26Autor: BCP
These Scripture verses from the Epistle to the Romans are a continuation of the preceding verses where the Apostle cries out: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” In chapter eight we read that those are free who are in Christ Jesus. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes us free from the law of sin and death. The process of our deliverance in every new situation is accomplished again and again only in Christ Jesus. The law of sin is a machine against which we are powerless relying on our human efforts. The law of the Spirit of life works in those who “walk according to the Spirit of God rather than according to the flesh” (Rom 8:1).
Reflection on Rom 7:24-25
Post date: 2019-09-07Autor: BCP
At the end of chapter seven, the Apostle cries out: “O wretched man that I am!” He says it in the light of God, aware of the law of sin which is at work in us as well as of human powerlessness when we want to do good by our own efforts. Saying this, the Apostle also asks: “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” And he gives the answer at once: “Thanks be to God (for doing so) through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Reflection on Rom 7:22-23
Post date: 2019-08-24Autor: BCP
The inward man mentioned in God’s Word is in agreement with the law of the mind and delights in the law of God. In another place in the Scripture, the Apostle Paul calls this spiritual man “pneumatikos”. The spiritual man is led by the Spirit of God. The natural – old – man, by contrast, is governed by the lusts of the flesh and pride. We have to fight against the old man, i.e. original sin in us, until the end of our lives. He must not be our Lord! Jesus must be our Lord! When we are deceived by sin and we fall, again and again we must repent and arise on the way of following Christ. This is a daily programme for a true Christian.
Reflection on Rom 7:18-20
Post date: 2019-08-10Autor: BCP
The working of sin is unjust, but there is one more thing that is unjust and thanks to it we are saved. Jesus died for us on the cross and delivered us from sin. According to justice, we have no right to salvation. It is the greatest gift. And so in order to know Christ more and more we need to give Him our sins more and more, not to keep them and not to allow them to proliferate. Let us repent immediately even after committing a minor sin in thought, word or deed. Let us stop immediately and make an act of contrition.
Reflection on Rom 3:14-19
Post date: 2019-07-27Autor: BCP
This whole passage highlights the truth that all have sinned and all the world is guilty before God. Verses 10-18 describe the old self and its evil works. But we know that Jesus has come to take on Himself all sins originating from the poisoned root in us which the Scripture calls the old self.
Reflection on 1Jn 3:24
Post date: 2019-07-13Autor: BCP
The true meaning of the commandments is to create the conditions for God to be in us and for us to be in Him. Therefore we also have to find time for prayer, i.e. for God and for our immortal soul. Without prayer one can hardly speak of the love of God and the love of neighbour.
Reflection on 1Jn 3:22
Post date: 2019-06-29Autor: BCP
This word of life emphasizes that we receive whatever we ask. The condition for our prayers to be heard is to keep His commandments and to do those things that are pleasing in His sight.