Remember who really gave you life

Charles Gruber, member of Oread Friends Meeting, 1146 Ore.:

From the human point of view, judgment and opinion rule our lives: “I like this, I don’t like that. This is good, that is evil. This is desirable, that is unwanted.”

It is said that the only block to our enlightenment is opinion. When I rise above aversion and grasping, I am able to see all of creation with unflinching acceptance.

I suspect that from the divine point of view, there is no worthiness or unworthiness. There is only the divine love for all God’s children.

So the real test is, “How do I remember my divine inheritance?” As the Sufis say, “The only virtue is remembering and the only sin is forgetting.”

So in the interest of virtue, find a way to remember. Choose the church bell that sounds on the quarter-hour or the whistle of every train that goes by or the sound of the your cell phone ringing to direct your attention to your breath. Breathe in and breathe out, and remember who really gave you life.

Paul Simon sings, “Who’s gonna love you when your looks are gone? Who’s gonna love you when your looks are gone? God will, just like he waters the flowers on your window sill. God will, just like he waters the flowers on your window sill.”

You are one of the many worthy flowers on the window sill of life.

– Send e-mail to Charles Gruber at gruber@cgruber.com.

We, as sinners, deserve God’s judgment

The Rev. Gary Meyer, Lawrence Baptist Temple, 3201 W. 31st St.:

First of all, let us define the term “we.”

If we refers to all mankind as we are, then I would answer no. We are not worthy of God’s love.

The Bible says in Isaiah 64:6, “But we are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

Then in Romans 3:19: “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”

What we, as sinners, are worthy of is the wrath and judgment of Almighty God. The Bible in many passages describes man as unlovable, no good, lost, hellbound and hell-deserving because the wages of sin are death.

The good news is that Jesus Christ took our guilt, our shame, our judgment and our hell when he died upon the cross, was buried in a tomb, and rose again for our justification.

When a person places his trust in Jesus Christ, and receives him into his heart, he then is saved and becomes worthy of God’s love.

God loves the world, not because the people are worthy; but because he chooses to and he proved his love by sending his only begotten son into the world, that the world through him might be saved.

– Contact Gary Meyer at 841-1756