Charles Dickens wrote the classic Oliver Twist. If you’ve read
the book or seen the movie, you know how the hungry young orphan, spoon in hand
comes forward at the orphanage workhouse and asks, “Please sir can I have some more.”
Think about the disciples, Jesus is telling them he
is going away. They have not had their fill. “Please give us some more.”
Jesus promises I will not
leave you orphans.
If you love me, you will keep my
commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another
Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot
accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he
remains with you, and will be in you.
People of the world say they believe in God; but, they don’t
need religion. They proclaim that they have faith, but they don’t live it. They
are spiritual but they don’t believe in the Holy Spirit.They do not know him.
We create our own orphanage by starving ourselves of true spiritual food, by forgetting God.
The Father does not forget us, His adopted
children. Christ does not abandon us. We were sent the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. This
is the truth of the Christian faith, One God, the Holy Trinity.
Jesus tells us that those of the world cannot accept this
because they don’t see him and they don’t know him.
For worldly reasons, we forget our heavenly Father. We abandon Christ. We don’t
know the Holy Spirit. One reason is the worldly do not understand God.
I met a Muslim person that told me Jesus couldn’t be
the son of God, because God did not have relations with Mary. This is an anthropomorphic
opinion of the creator of all things. It is not just Muslims that have this
opinion.
Anthropomorphic means that we as humans give human
characteristics to things that are not human. Why do we make God like us? God
is not human. We cannot understand the mystery of God. It is only humanity that
we think we understand. It is an easy reality for us. We see it. We touch it. It
does not require faith.We try to understand God in the same way.
Because of the absence of faith and the lack of the Lord Jesus Christ in their hearts, the worldly ask those who believe for explanations. Why do you believe? How is it that you
believe? Why do you have faith? Why do you do good things?
Believers celebrate the resurrection.
The resurrection is the reason we believe. It was Jesus promise and He fulfilled
that promise. So we trust his words and believe His promises. This is faith.
But worldly don’t believe what they can’t see. They
put human limitations on Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God the Father. They
forget God. The worldly know only the reality of human existence.
The worldly say they are spiritual, but they don’t know
the Holy Spirit. If truly spiritual,
they would know the one the world does not see. They would know the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit is in the Christ. Christ is in the Holy Spirit. The
Holy Spirit is in the Father. The Father is in the Holy Spirit. Christ is in
the Father. The Father is in Christ.
If the worldly were spiritual they would know the
Church Christ left for us. If spiritual, they would know those sent by the Holy
Spirit, proclaiming the Christ. They would know the Church of Peter, John, and
Phillip guided by the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. Christ
promised He would be with the Church always.
The worldly do not want to accept these truths of
God. Running away from God and the Church, the worldly make the world they live in an orphanage.
In the story of Oliver Twist, we learn that good
will survive against the evil of the world. Jesus promised, I will not leave your orphans.
Y'all be good, y'all be
holy, and preach the gospel by the way you live and love. Amen.
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