Readings for Today. Listen to our other podcasts.
Don’t be afraid: God loves you
Hello and welcome to Spend Five with Jesus for this Friday, October 20th, 2023. I am the Friar. I’m so happy that you’ve joined us today.
Today’s Gospel is a warning. It’s a warning about the dangers of hypocrisy. Now, we’re all capable of hypocrisy and quite frankly every time we sin, we can be capable of hypocrisy because we may project one thing to people but then commit sin when we’re really not thinking anybody’s going to notice.
So, hypocrisy is not a limited reality. But when we don’t acknowledge our hypocrisy then it can be dangerous. And so Jesus reminds us in the Gospel first about something that on one hand could be seen as scary but on the other hand could be a great comfort to you and to me.
And that’s kind of what we want to look at as we put these things together. So, of course it’s scary because He says there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed. Okay, if we’ve done things we wished others wouldn’t know. If we had done things that we’re not proud of, made sin, done things that are not at our best where we’ve harmed others, we’ve harmed ourselves, then of course we would probably rather those things be kept a secret.
And so the fact that God is going to reveal them at some point could be a little frightening. Of course, God already knows our sins. God already knows who we are. In fact, God knows us better than we know ourselves.
But the second part is maybe, or the second way to look at this is one of great comfort because what we know from Jesus is that indeed He can heal us. He can forgive our sins. He can do these kinds of things that are going to make us better persons, better people, that are going to help us to understand and to see what it is that Jesus wants to do for us.
And that’s what He means when He’s talking about being afraid of those who can do more. He says don’t be afraid of those who can kill the body. That’s not anything else. If they can only kill the body, don’t worry about that.
Be worried about the one who can really cast you into Gehenna. Be worried about the one that has ultimate value for your choice. And if that choice is to completely reject Him, then in fact it becomes quite important for us to recognize that that’s tremendous power.
That’s in fact something really outstanding. But here’s the thing, God doesn’t want us to die. We hear that over and over again in the Bible. God does not want the sinner to die. God does not want us to stay in our sins. In fact, God gave His life for you and for me so that we would not die in our sins.
And so today, take a moment maybe to ask the Lord for forgiveness. Maybe go to confession. And on another way, take a look and see how is it that you can appreciate God’s overwhelming and unbelievable love for you so that you may be drawn closer to Jesus and that you may reach out to proclaim the faith to others.
On the friar, you can listen to our homilies (based on the readings of the day) and reflections. You can also ask us to pray for you or to pray for others. You can subscribe to our website to be informed whenever we publish an update.
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