You must have heard a number of religious leaders telling you about the love God has for you and the wonderful plan that he has for your life. Yes, any time we are faced with troubles, we are always reminded that God has plans for us; that such troubles are ephemeral in nature and will soon end. We are reminded about the suffering of Job in the Bible and how God not only relieved him of the excruciating pain that he had undergone for several days, but also how he restored his wealth. Christians are normally confronted with this question: What does it take to establish a relationship with God? They want to know what it basically takes to know God. They have been questioning whether the miracles that God used in the Biblical times to reveal Himself are still applicable today. God manifested Himself on different occasions to different people and you could almost touch His physical presence, like when he led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt. “Do you have to wait for lightning to strike so that you can know Him? Do you have to wait to devote yourself to selfless religious deeds? Or are you waiting to become that better person so that you can be accepted by God? “Absolutely none of the above!,” Says Fred Masengesho, a staunch member of Remera Catholic church. Masengesho says that God’s love to His children is unconditional. He adds that since God is the one who created us all, he loves us so much and the only thing that He needs out of this relation is for us to know Him now, and spend eternity with Him. Masengesho cites the book of John to reinforce this view. It says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” “What other evidence do we need to prove God’s love for us? Sacrificing Jesus to come and die for our sins is the ultimate symbol of the true and selfless love that He has bestowed upon us,” says Masengesho. Masengesho adds that the only way we can return God’s love is through obeying his command and not sinning. “It’s our sinning ways that prevent us from receiving the full glory of our Creator. Sin is turning us away from God, and our instruction is to avoid it at all costs,” he adds The Bible tells us that “All of us like sheep have gone astray; each of us has turned to his own way.” Even though our attitude might be passive indifference and active rebellion toward God and His ways, all evidence points out that we have all sinned and need salvation. The result of our sin will inevitably be death-or rather spiritual separation from God. And even though we normally try as much as possible to get close to our God, we fail in our endeavors because of our sin and disobeying the commandments. This, according to Masengesho ends up creating some emotional distance between us and God. “All the suffering we’re seeing in this world stems from sin,” he says. But he hastens to add that all hope is not lost. There’s a way that we can reestablish our personal relationship with God, and this is through Jesus, quoting Jesus as saying in the Bible, “Come to me. If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me…out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” “Jesus love to us made him endure the cross, and now he’s inviting us to come to him so that we may establish again personal relationship with God,” he concludes. Being Christian is not easy, says Pope Francis Pope Francis says a model of Christian life is based Luke 6:27-38, in which Christ tells his disciples to “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you.” The Pope calls this unconditional love in action. “Lend without hoping to have back what you have lent – [act] without interest, and your reward will be great,” he said in a homily on Thursday. The Lord asks us to be merciful. He asks us not to judge. Often, said Pope Francis, “It seems that we have been named judges of others: engaging in gossip, talking behind people’s backs, we judge everyone.” The Lord, however tells us not to judge, lest we be judged ourselves. “Do not condemn [others],” said Pope Francis, “and you will not be condemned.” The Lord asks us to forgive, that we might be forgiven. “We say it every day in the Our Father,” noted the pontiff, “forgive us as we forgive others – and if I do not forgive, how can I ask the Father to forgive me?” “This is the Christian life. ‘But Father, this is folly!’ one might say. ‘Yes’, one might answer, ‘it is’. We have heard in these days, though, St Paul, who said the same: the foolishness of the Cross of Christ, which has nothing to do with the wisdom of the world. ‘But Father, to be Christian is to become some sort of fool?’ [one might say]. ‘Yes’, [I would say], ‘in a certain sense, yes. It means renouncing the cunning of the world in order to do everything that Jesus tells us to do and that, if we do the sums, if we balance the ledger, seems to be against us.” Francis went on to explain that the way the Lord teaches us is the way of magnanimity, of generosity, of self-giving without measure. “It was for this,” he said, “that Jesus came into the world,” not to judge, not to engage in idle gossip, not to pass judgments, but to give and to forgive. “Being Christian isn’t easy,” said Pope Francis, adding that we can become Christians only by the grace of God, and not by our own strength. “Here then arises the problem that we all must face daily: ‘Lord, give me the grace to become a good Christian, because I cannot do it on my own’. This is something quite frightening at first glance – quite frightening, indeed. If, however, we take the Gospel and we read the 6th chapter of St. Luke – and reread it and reread it and reread it – and let us do so – and let us ask the Lord for the grace to understand what it is to be a Christian, to understand the grace He gives to us Christians, as well, because we cannot do it on our own.”
