The Highway Of Holiness

“And a great road will go through that once deserted land. It will be named the Highway of Holiness. Evil-minded people will never travel on it. It will be only for those who walk in God’s ways; fools will never walk there.” Isaiah 35:8 NLT

The wonderful story of Christmas about God coming into the world in Jesus Christ as a baby in a manger is to awaken in us the wonder of a new birth and to reveal our need to be reborn again to be a child of God:

 “Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?” Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.  So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.” John 3:3‭-‬8 NLT

Without a spiritual birth, we will live as human beings seeking spiritual experiences with sinful desires. We may even worship God like Cain but our sinful nature will lead us to evil just as Cain murdered his brother Abel. The tragic Christmas story of the massacre of the children by King Herod shows us the horror of the sin of envy:

“Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance.” Matthew 2:16 NLT 

We need to be born again through faith in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit to enter the Kingdom of God. Then our Shepherd of Love will guide us along the right paths to bring honor to God’s name. He willl renew our strength and purify our hearts so that we can have an intimate relationship with God in the kingdom of heaven here on earth:

 “God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.” Matthew 5:8 NLT

 Through the Holy Spirit we can live as the children of God - spiritual beings who are the human channels of God’s love, joy and peace. Without the Holy Spirit, we are unable to see, hear, touch, taste and smell the transforming presence of God in our daily lives. We will be tempted to turn the stones in our hearts into bread instead of feeding on the manna of God’s Word:

 “For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry. During that time the devil came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.” But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Matthew 4:2‭-‬4 NLT

It is by the Holy Spirit that we will be able read the bible with our hearts to transform our minds. We will find wisdom and not mere knowledge:

 “And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths.  But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.” 1 Corinthians 2:12‭-‬14 NLT

God has given us a Highway of Holiness in the wilderness of our stony hearts - when our hearts are purified and our minds are childlike. Let us pray for the Holy Spirit to transform our struggles in life into stepping stones. May we grow spiritually in Advent 2020 and be empowered to love and serve others. Let us rejoice with our Emmanuel on the Highway of Holiness as we sing:

“O come, Desire of nations, bind
All peoples in one heart and mind;
Bid envy, strife and quarrels cease;
Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!

 

 

The Voice Of Peace In The Wilderness Of Anxiety

“But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you. “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.” John 14:26‭-‬27 NLT

Advent 2020 is a very special time in human history. We have been thrown into the wilderness of anxiety by the COVID 19 virus. This miniscule virus is, at the same time, the voice crying out in the wilderness to prepare the way for the Lord. We are forced to redirect our attention from the festivities of Christmas and to reexamine and reflect on the reason for the season - the birth of Christ in our hearts. It is a time to ponder on the absence of God in our mundane and hectic lives so that we will be drawn to the wonder of God’s presence in the beauty of creation and in one another as the Spirit opens our spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear.

Reflecting on the parable of the sower, I found pride reigning in my heart and turning it into a stony soil. I am tempted to idolatry and to worship money and power just as Jesus was tempted in the wilderness after his baptism:

“Next the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. “I will give it all to you,” he said, “if you will kneel down and worship me.” “Get out of here, Satan,” Jesus told him. “For the Scriptures say, ‘You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’” Matthew 4:8‭-‬10 NLT

The best antidote to pride is to let our Shepherd of Love lead me beside peaceful streams and to rest in green meadows (Psalms 23:2) - to spend time doing nothing with God so that God can do something in and through me as I trust Jesus Christ to be my everything.

We celebrate Christmas because Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead to give us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with the love of God (Romans 5:5). Through our faith in Jesus Christ, we have peace with God (Romans 5:1). And so we can live in the wilderness of anxiety with the wonderful promise of Jesus:

 “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.” John 14:27 NLT

 The season of Advent is to make room for God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. To do so, I have found Christian meditation most helpful. The tradition of silence and stillness in prayer is to observe our thoughts and feelings in a noncritical and nonjudgmental way as we invite the Holy Spirit to search our hearts. Dorothy Lee noted that although it helps us to relax and to deal with anxiety, the more important value of meditation lies in increasing our awareness of God’s presence:

 “It is nothing other than the presence of God and being entirely in the present moment, which, though it may not seem productive during the meditation, is ultimately transformative for the whole of life. It is not a matter of wrestling with anxiety but rather of resting in the transforming presence of God beyond our egos.”

 The COVID 19 virus has dealt a mighty blow to human pride by forcing us to face our “inability to control emotional responses to perceived threats” - a definition of anxiety. It had also enforced God’s Sabbath rest on humankind and had turned our cities into a wilderness for a time.

The challenge of Advent 2020 is to transcend our egos by resting in God’s transforming Presence that we may receive the gift of peace of mind and heart. We need the Holy Spirit to turn the stony ground of our hearts into fertile soil. Then we can reap a harvest of righteousness and sow the seeds of peace:

 “God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.” Matthew 5:9 NLT

 It is our identity as a child of God that gives us a true understanding and appreciation of the significance and purpose of our apparently short and insignificant lives. As children of God we are called to live together in love and peace. When we live together in peace as the family of God, we are in heaven on earth.

Let us, with a poverty of spirit and in meekness, reflect on the gift of the Holy Spirit during this second week of Advent:

 “How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven
No ear may hear His coming
But in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive him still
The dear Christ enters in."

Second Sunday of Advent: Our Stony Hearts

“And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive heart, so they will obey my decrees and regulations. Then they will truly be my people, and I will be their God.” Ezekiel 11:19-20 NLT

 After the “path” of our hearts has been broken, our hearts becomes a stony ground without much soil. A seed sown in the stony ground sprout quickly but wilted rapidly when the sun came up as it had no roots. Likewise, we may receive the gospel with great joy only to fall away when we face trouble, suffering or persecution. The real test of our salvation is seen in our responses to tribulation, suffering and persecution. God does not save us from the problems in life but promises to be with us in our struggles through life.

When we have stony hearts, it is so easy to break God’s heart when we are blind to God’s love. The words of the song “Wooden Hearts” led me to a  higher truth:

 “Can’t you see God loves you   
Please don’t break His heart in two    
That’s not hard to do
‘Cause we all have such stony hearts

Jesus came to be our Shepherd of Love to lead us beside peaceful streams so that we can rest in green meadows. He renews our strengths and guides us along the right paths so that we will bring honor to God’s name. Jesus came to give rest to our souls and to change our stony hearts into tender hearts. Then we can be firmly rooted in God’s love. Jesus identified himself with our stony hearts by going through the “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4):

 “One day when the crowds were being baptized, Jesus himself was baptized. As he was praying, the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit, in bodily form, descended on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.” Luke 3:21‭-‬22 NLT

The baptism of Jesus by the Holy Spirit highlights our need for repentance and forgiveness. It is through repentance and forgiveness that we can be born again and have the hope of new life as a child of God. Dorothy Lee makes the insightful observation that “as a human being, Jesus descended into the waters of sin and suffering in order to quench them.” Baptism is an act of identification with sin and to prepare us for suffering that is part and parcel of our human life. When James and John, the sons of Zebedee, asked to seat in the places of honour next to Jesus on the throne of God, Jesus told them:

 “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism of suffering I must be baptized with?” Mark 10:38 NLT

 Our response to our struggles and suffering in life reveals the condition of our heart and how deep are the roots of our faith in the love of God. In a stony heart where lust, greed, pride and envy reigns, the seed of God’s grace cannot bear fruit with shallow roots. It is therefore so important for us to be aware of our sinful desires through contemplative prayer. After his baptism Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil with God’s promise in Psalm 91:11-12:

 “Then the devil took him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, and said, “If you are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say, ‘He will order his angels to protect you. And they will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.’” Matthew 4:5‭-‬6 NLT

 In times of difficulties we are tempted to put God to the test to remove them instead of asking the Holy Spirit to use our difficulties to reveal our sinful desires. Advent is the season of spring cleaning our hearts so that the Holy Spirit can fill them with the love of God. It is a time to rejoice in our identity as the children of God and ambassadors of our Prince of Peace:

 “Hark! The herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn King!
Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings

Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn King!”

The Silence of Holy Moments

 The Silence Of Holy Moments

Be silent before the Lord, all humanity, for he is springing into action from his holy dwelling.” Zechariah 2:13 NLT

God has a perfect story for each of our lives. But I am spiritually blind and spiritually deaf to God’s voice when I live in fear of God’s judgment and misunderstand His commandments of love. When my image of God is that of an angry Judge and not as our Heavenly Father, His seed of grace cannot bear fruit - my heart is hardened like a path instead of being a fertile soil. 

I am then driven to seek to do good works to please God instead of living out my life as His masterpiece of Love. I am misled to strive to live a life of prayer instead of thriving and bearing the fruit of the Spirit by abiding in God’s grace through the silence of contemplative prayer. Prayer is not a ritual but the spiritual breath of our souls. It is easier to spend time talking to God instead of listening to His still small voice. And so often I miss God’s voice in the silence of holy moments. Our Shepherd of Love has given us everything we need to live the life that we are called to live:

“Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.” 2 Peter 1:3-‬4 MSG

But, as John Blackwell so rightly pointed out in his book, “The Noonday Demon,” our eyes are closed and maybe blind to the gentle nudges of Love offering us the gift of sight. He asked us to imagine how the practice of our “wondering” together what God is saying to us, in us and through us will transform our lives. By becoming a community of reflection that we become more fully human.

Instead of studying the bible, we can reflect on what is God calling us to accomplish together. We can simply share what we heard - a verse of Scripture or a line from a hymn. Discussing what we think only lead us to wander in the wilderness of our human thoughts. Spending moments of silence to ponder on our sharing about what we feel God was saying to us in those moments will draw us closer to God and to one another. As we do so, we may be able to see how God is molding us each day in all our moments - in our pain, our conflicts, our fears as well as our joys. Henri Nouwen reminds us:

“Community is not a talent show in which we dazzle the world with our combined gifts. Community is the place where our poverty is acknowledged and accepted, not as something we have to learn to cope with as best as we can but as a true source of new life.”

Advent is a time to reflect on the story of the birth of Jesus Christ in a manger as there was no room for his mother in the inn. This is to illustrate the truth that blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Our spiritual life, according to Henri Nouwen, is “a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, expecting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination or prediction.” The spirit of poverty helps us give up control over our future and to let God define our life.

So let us worship our God of the Present Moment by seeking His presence in the silence of holy moments as we proclaim:

“Joy to the world! The Lord is come
Let earth receive her King!
Let every heart prepare Him room
And heaven and nature sing
And heaven and nature sing
And heaven, and heaven and nature sing.”

God's Gift of Silence

 God’s Gift Of Silence

“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” Psalms 46:10 NKJV

The season of Advent marks the beginning of our Christian journey - a time when we reaffirm that Jesus Christ is our Shepherd of Love guiding us to an adventure of a life of love. It is a time to reawaken our sense of awe and wonder with the stories of Advent and the Christmas carols. As we sing:

“Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
'Round yon virgin Mother and Child
Holy infant so tender and mild....”

let us remember that we are the children of God. Let us recapture the childlike spirit of meekness to inherit the beautiful world that God has created. The spiritual discipline of silence is to help us to do so. Keeping silence expresses our trust in God and when our minds are fixed on God, He will keep us in perfect peace (Isaiah 26:3).

Last year, I lost my voice during the season of Advent and I was led to rediscover God’s voice in the discipline of silence and contemplative prayer. “Desert spirituality” is the reaction to and liberation from “empire spirituality” of Christians in the fourth century after the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine and elevation of Christianity to a state religion in 313 AD. Instead of being persecuted, Christians found themselves being tempted with greed and the lust of power.

The practice of silence and solitude is to examine the true condition of our hearts. To seek meekness with the hidden agenda to inherit the earth is very different from having the be-attitude of meekness to bring heaven on earth, This comes from having a spirit of gentleness rooted in our faith in the grace of God. The journey to examine our hearts is therefore  a journey we all have to take before we can truly follow Jesus. We need to be aware of our hurts, hangups and negative habits of thinking in order to leave the God we know with our minds. Only then will we be able to meet a God with our hearts - a God we don’t know and can’t possibly imagine with our minds.

Learning and practising to be still is to become aware that we are more than our brains or minds. We are not human beings having a spiritual experience but spiritual beings having a human experience. At Christmas we celebrate the coming of Jesus from heaven to embody meekness as a baby in a manger:

“Instead, he emptied himself; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” Philippians 2:7‭-‬8 NLT

The truest sign of our salvation is when we live with humility or meekness because we know that we cannot take our salvation for granted - just like  a member of Alcoholics Anonymous who can never take his cure from alcohol addiction for granted and is always dependent on the grace of God to keep him from falling back into addiction.

Our human tendency is to show off our strengths and to hide our weaknesses. When we do so we become our own worst enemies for then we know deep within ourselves that we are hypocrites. The way of meekness is to keep the good things we have done in our hearts and to share the messy realities of our daily lives.

The first step in our journey in Advent is therefore to offer ourselves as living sacrifices as we seek a Christmas that is really Christmas when we truly give our hearts to Jesus in repentance and surrender:

“And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.  Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” Romans 12:1‭-‬2 NLT

May the Lord lead our hearts into a full understanding and expression of the love of God and the patient endurance that comes from Christ (2 Thessalonians 3:5 NLT) as we seek God’s gift of silence in this first week of Advent.

Advent In A Blue Christmas

 Advent In A Blue Christmas

“But no one knows about that day or hour. Not even the angels in heaven know. The Son does not know. Only the Father knows. Keep watch! Stay awake! You do not know when that time will come.” Mark 13:32-‬33 NIRV

The COVID 19 pandemic has cast dark clouds over Christmas celebrations this year. Instead of a merry Christmas, we are faced with the prospect of a blue Christmas - with financial worries and health concerns hanging over our heads. Together with political upheavals, climate changes and natural disasters, the COVID 19 pandemic has also given birth to many false prophecies about the end times. However, the blessing of COVID 19 is that it is a wake up call to rediscover the real meaning of Advent. To overcome our feelings of blues over our inability to prepare for our traditional Christmas celebrations, we can take time for silence and reflection - a time to be captivated by the season of Advent. Advent without the hedonistic trappings of Christmas can be an exciting adventure to make room in our hearts for the Risen Christ.

Instead of speculating on the second coming of Christ which no one can know, we are called to keep watch and to stay awake. A more fruitful exercise for Advent is to spend time in Silence, to wait on the Holy Spirit, to search the Scriptures and to seek the leading of our Shepherd of Love.

How we spend our time in this world is determined by what is in our hearts. The spiritual condition of our hearts determines whether we will bear the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self control. In the parable of the sower, Jesus describes the four kinds of soil that represent the condition of our hearts - the path, the rocky ground, the soil filled with thorns and the good soil.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has drawn attention to the truth that the line separating good from evil runs not between countries or classes or cities or political parties, but right through the human heart. And it oscillates. He saw that even in the best of us, there remains some unpurged evil, but even in the worst of us, a small corner of goodness remains. It is therefore so important to be aware of the kind of soil that we may have in our hearts.

First Sunday of Advent: Our hearts as a path

A seed sown on the path cannot bear fruit. People walked on it and the birds ate it up. When our hearts are a path, we are unable to believe and to receive the power of God’s love. We are under the control of lust and greed. We are only concerned about what we want and how we can make use of others to get what we want. We are addicted to our need for control and blind to our need for God’s amazing grace.

In the midst of our successes and comfortable lives we are in constant danger of forgetting God. We are tempted to turn health, wealth and longevity into our idols. COVID 19 is a grim reminder that the future is unpredictable and that we are powerless over life and death. This tiny virus is teaching us to realize how short our lives are so that our hearts will become wise (Psalm 90:12). The call to keep watch and stay awake is not an order from a tyrannical God to keep us from enjoying life but the wise advice from our Shepherd of Love to help us live life abundantly.

When Jesus is our Shepherd of Love, we are the sheep of His pasture. As His sheep, we will have the be-attitude of meekness. And we have the wonderful promise that the meek will inherit the earth. This is not about going to heaven when we die but living in the kingdom of heaven here on earth. It is living with Jesus reigning in our lives as the Servant King in the here and now. It is living in the power of love and not to be seduced by the love of power.

With Jesus as our Shepherd, we will not fear poverty for we can trust that God will always provide for our needs but not our wants. We need the spirit of poverty to live in the kingdom of heaven. This does not mean that we are to be materially poor - it is to be free from the sin of greed. It is only with the spirit of poverty that we can live a life of total dependence on God. And this will keep us from the love of money that is the root of all evil.

To keep watch, we can practice silence. It is a practice to become more aware of our thinking and the thoughts flooding our minds - it is not trying to empty our minds. At times, one may fall asleep during the silence especially when one is physically tired - and hence we need to stay awake!

Cultivating silence is the expression of our intention to seek God’s presence. It is an act of repentance. Through silence we invite the Holy Spirit to transform our minds so that we will not conform to the thinking of the world. And it is a concrete act of surrendering our will to God. Through silence we can become more aware of the sins of lust and greed. In silence we trust that the Holy Spirit is working to change our attitudes so that we will have the beatitudes of meekness and poverty of spirit.

Mother Teresa described prayer as the fruit of silence. In prayer, we seek the power of love to overcome lust. We pray for the fruit of goodness so that we will be freed from the sin of greed. In prayer, we confront the reality of evil as well as affirm our trust in God’s faithful Love:

“And pray that we will be saved from sinful and evil people. Not everyone is a believer. But the Lord is faithful. He will strengthen you. He will guard you from the evil one. We trust in the Lord. So we are sure that you are doing the things we tell you to do. And we are sure that you will keep on doing them.” 2 Thessalonians 3:2-‬4 NIRV

Let us learn to be still and to wait in silence during this Advent in a Blue Christmas of 2020 so that the Holy Spirit can break up the “path” in our hearts and change it into good soil for God’s seed of Love to bear fruit.

 

God's Message Of Hope

“Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you alive again! I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’” Ezekiel 37:4-6

The Jews were at the lowest point of their faith as they had been scattered and the Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. They were utterly powerless and lifeless - like dry bones scattered in the valley - a picture of total helplessness and hopelessness. It was a time when they faced the consuming fire of God’s judgment as they lament:

“We have become old, dry bones—all hope is gone. Our nation is finished.” Ezekiel 37:11 NLT

The history of the Jews is to teach us that it is sin that separates us from God and like the Jews, we can become dry bones spiritually. We feel we are sinners because of our sins but God knows we sin because we are sinners. We need to see and understand that sin is the cancer of our souls that leads to death. God’s consuming fire of love is to purify our sinful and deceitful hearts. God’s fire of love is spiritual radiotherapy to cure the spiritual cancer of sin.

God’s discipline is restorative justice - to heal us, to redeem us and to set us free from our slavery to sin. It is not retributive punishment to make us suffer for our sins. It is so crucial to see the wonderful story of God’s Love in the book of Ezekiel. Instead of being blinded by God’s wrath we need to learn from the Jews the reality of our rebellious and sinful hearts that keeps us from living the abundant life as the children of God. We need to hear God’s message of hope given to Ezekiel that will transform dry bones into a great army of God:

“I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live again and return home to your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done what I said. Yes, the Lord has spoken!’” Ezekiel 37:14 NLT

God’s promise has been fulfilled through Jesus Christ who came to be our Shepherd of Love - He died and rose from the dead to give us the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is also the cornerstone of God’s new Temple and we are the living stones. And as Ezekiel prophesied:

“I will make my home among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And when my Temple is among them forever, the nations will know that I am the Lord, who makes Israel holy.” Ezekiel 37:27‭-‬28 NLT

To be a follower of Jesus Christ therefore means more than just being a member of a church - it is to be a living stone of God’s Temple and to be a part of the Body of the Risen Christ. Christians are to be the ekklesia - a group of citizens called out of their homes to be witnesses of the reality of the Risen Christ:

“It is important that the church today understand the definition of ekklesia. The church needs to see itself as being “called out” by God. If the church wants to make a difference in the world, it must be different from the world. Salt is different from the food it flavors. God has called the church to be separate from sin (1 Peter 1:16), to embrace fellowship with other believers (Acts 2:42), and to be a light to the world (Matthew 5:14). God has graciously called us unto Himself: “‘Come out from them and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you’” (2 Corinthians 6:17).”1

The COVID 19 pandemic provides Christians with an amazing opportunity to live out the truth of being God’s ekklesia so that they will shine as bright stars in a world darkened by the pandemic and financial crisis. It is a time to pray that God will breathe upon us and fill us with life anew - to love what God loves and do what He would do:

“Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Until my heart is pure,
Until with Thee I will one will,
To do and to endure.”2

So may the Lord lead us to use this time of enforced solitude to draw near to God by learning spiritual breathing through silence and meditation.

References:

1. What is the definition of ekklesia? gotquestions.org/definition-ekklesia.html

2. Breathe on me, Breath of God