Jan. 28, 2011 Friday: Our Struggles
The following is an excerpt from the book Lessons in Love: Moving Toward Divine Intimacy by Anne, a lay apostle
Our Struggles
When we pass from humanity into eternity, the struggle ceases. While we remain in our humanity, the struggle continues. So, we die and go to heaven and never struggle again. The time for struggle ends. This time on earth, my friends, is a time of the greatest opportunity. We should let nothing stand in the way of holiness but should make holiness and spiritual growth our greatest priority.
When we die, we will never regret a decision we made for God or for the welfare of others. We will regret the decisions we made against God and against the welfare of others.
When we die, we will never regret suffering. We will regret violent or rebellious responses to suffering.
When we die, we will never regret a decision to be tolerant of those around us. We will regret decisions to be outraged and intolerant.
I would like to say that we have certain standards we adopt as Christians. We aspire to rise to these standards ourselves and we rejoice when others rise to these standards. Humanity being what it is, and life being what it is, we must be flexible, though. We must not allow a Pharisee-like rigidity to poison what is good. This is to say that we reject rigidity and any judgmental attitude.
The Pharisees used the law to condemn others rather than to increase their own holiness. Any goodness in Christ was irrelevant to them. We do not want to be caught in the same way with Pharisees, using our standards as a means to hold ourselves above our brothers and sisters or to try to catch them out. We must not let the enemy point to a superior and inconsistent attitude in us as reason why our brothers and sisters should reject God.
Any apostle could name another who behaves like a Pharisee but that will not be helpful, beyond advancing our understanding of the phenomenon. Jesus would be happier if every apostle scrutinized himself and worked with Him on eradicating any judgmental attitude in the apostle's own soul.
We see that the Pharisees were looking to condemn. Remember that this is opposite of what Jesus did. Jesus looked to save. We must look for evidence of hope and potential in those around us. Some search constantly for evidence of unholiness in others.
