I know that it might seem hard sometimes to live worthily. I know the shame that comes with sticking with your own morals and values. I know that sometimes it can be tiring to be so different and stand out. It feels weird to be the odd one out amongst friends.
But if you knew the glory you bring God by standing your ground and being morally upright, you’ll marvel. If you knew the expression on God’s face each time you gave up something for the sake of Christ, you would be so touched.
You have not done much if you didn’t give up something. If you didn’t give up your pride by doing something outrageous in the eyes of the world, you have not done much.
In those days, people sacrificed goats and rams, but the fact that Jesus came and died does not mean God stopped loving sacrifices. How else would you show someone that you love him other than by giving up something precious to you just like He gave up something precious Himself.
This is why God loves charity, because in doing charity, you forsake your own satisfaction that the other may be satisfied. This is love. God is love. He wants you to be a person of love too.
God wants you to love Him to the point where you can easily forsake the entire world for His sake. God wants you to turn down offers that are displeasing to Him that His holy name may be glorified.
We ask, why didn’t God just destroy the devil once and for all? Why didn’t He just make the devil disappear? But the devil has not disappeared from your own life. You wine and dine with him every day; you even feed him, clothe him and give him shelter. You glorify the devil by the things you do. The devil is powerful in your own life. How would God destroy him when you yourself feed him and exalt him by doing the very things that the devil wants? You fornicate just so you wouldn’t lose the man that you love. You accept bribes just because you are poor, you abort innocent babies because you are afraid of the shame, you lie because your job is precious to you, you pretend that you are not praying and hide your rosaries when praying in the bus. What is love to you? How can you, after doing these things open your mouth wide and tell God that you love Him? Have you no fear?
Living as a human is tiring sometimes, because the world is filled with complications designed specially by the devil to torment and oppose God’s children; but God wants to see the efforts we put in. He wants to see us cry in guilt after we fall. God wants to see us worry about what He thinks. God wants us to think about Him every single hour. He wants us to get distracted in the course of our work thinking about him. This is what love is. Thinking about God and having Him in mind at all times, being conscious of His holy presence everywhere we go.
