A Reflection on Conversion

 

En lieu of a sermon by me on the evil of Big Ag and our poisoned food supply, here's a reflection on John 6 by an old friend. He's a retired Anglican priest and onetime Oxford Blue (pistol).

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. John 6:44

This verse from the Gospel for today has me thinking about conversion. I believe passionately in the need for personal conversion. It is a personal choice to follow Jesus. It is a personal choice to accept his atoning sacrifice on the Cross for the sin of the whole world. It is a personal choice to serve God in this world. Nobody just drifts into the Kingdom of God. The verse above is clear; it is God who has taken the initiative.

That initiative of God is to “draw” a person to Christ. It is God the Holy Spirit who “draws” us to consider Jesus Christ as the Incarnate Son, the “perfect sacrifice for the sin of the whole world.” It is God who “draws” us. We are then personally called to respond. Sadly, most will go their own way. Remember the rich young man? “Jesus showed love to him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me. But he was deeply dismayed by these words, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property.” (Mark 10:21-22)

I have experienced this “drawing” since I was young. I found that I wanted to be around people of faith. The Bible seemed always to speak to me. I loved worship in chapel at school. The Psalms and hymns spoke to me. I have always had a yearning to get closer to God. I believe I was being “drawn” and found ways to respond. That is even more so since I heard a clear call to the priesthood in 1967, at a Billy Graham Crusade in London. However, the “drawing” was, in retrospect, evident much earlier. In my opinion the key is how we respond. Do we say “yes” or do we turn away?

Conversion is a gift of Grace. As one who has found Jesus and the Gospel completely irresistible, I am amazed how many respond negatively to Jesus. Our sinfulness and need of God, our need of a savior, seem to me to be incontrovertible. At the end of John 6 we will read “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” (John 6:66) The twelve disciples did not reject Jesus, though one would go on to betray him.

Conversion is also a process of responding every day to God who “draws” us.  As followers of Jesus, we are offered constantly, daily, the choice to follow or not to follow, Jesus.

I pray for people to follow Jesus. God is always calling – calling each of us, all of us. Come, follow me, says Jesus. May we all hear that call of God amidst the noise of this world.

In his irresistible love, Fr Ian

 

I was moved by that and hope you find it helpful,

LSP

Honky Tonk Heroes

 

Honky Tonk Heroes and all hail Waylon and the rest of those outlaws. Speaking of which, I sent HTH to a rock 'n roll pal. His reply? Waylon ROCKS. Yes indeed, forever.

In other compelling news, the pillow guy's been raided by the Stasi FBI for daring to oppose our beloved rulers. About time! What a total Fascist. So take note, oppose our beloved Uniparty and get swatted, or hauled off to jail or kept in solitary for years without trial or whatever punishment fits your heinous crime.

Yes. Enemies of the State should expect nothing less and that's what we mean by tolerance and freedom. Obey us, or we crush you, in the name of the Rainbow. But what hides behind the gaily colored mane, glittering horn and gently thudding hooves? Surely not profit and insatiable greed, a beautiful house in the Vineyard, Mammon.

Ah, Mammon and the insatiable gullet of raytheon lockheed avarice. Consider it, the name Mammon connotes, in my mind at least, a kind of deadness. Vast, huge, and dead, but I won't bang on.

Gentlemen and women, do you remember Our Lord's admonition? Viz. You cannot serve God and Mammon. Choose wisely my friends. One way leads to life, the other leads to death.

Caveat,

LSP

Midweek Message

 

While reflecting on Christ's words in the Gospel for this coming Sunday, "Abide in my love," (Jn 15:9) I was struck by this:

In 1944, the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko's mother took him from Siberia to Moscow. They were among those who witnessed a procession of twenty-thousand German war prisoners marching through the streets of Moscow:

The pavements swarmed with onlookers, cordoned off by soldiers and police. The crowd was mostly women -- Russian women with hands roughened by hard work, lips untouched by lipstick, and with thin hunched shoulders which had borne half of the burden of the war. Every one of them must have had a father or a husband, a brother or a son killed by the Germans. They gazed with hatred in the direction from which the column was to appear.

At last we saw it. The generals marched at the head, massive chins stuck out, lips folded disdainfully, their whole demeanor meant to show superiority over their plebian victors.

"'They smell of perfume, the bastards," someone in the crowd said with hatred. The women were clenching their fists. The soldiers and policemen had all they could do to hold them back.

All at once something happened to them. They saw German soldiers, thin, unshaven, wearing dirty blood-stained bandages, hobbling on crutches or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades; the soldiers walked with their heads down. The street became dead silent -- the only sound was the shuffling of boots and the thumping of crutches.

Then I saw an elderly women in broken-down boots push herself forward and touch a policeman's shoulder, saying, "Let me through." There must have been something about her that made him step aside. She went up to the column, took from inside her coat something wrapped in a colored handkerchief and unfolded it. It was a crust of black bread. She pushed it awkwardly into the pocket of a soldier, so exhausted that he was tottering on his feet. And now from every side women were running toward the soldiers, pushing into their hands bread, cigarettes, whatever they had. The soldiers were no longer enemies. They were people. (A Precocious Autobiography, Yevgeny Yevtushenko)

 

Abide in my love says Christ. What freedom, peace and joy there is to be had in that, as opposed to the tyranny, conflict and misery of its opposite. 

Let's choose wisely between these to paths and pray without ceasing that God's invincible love, his life, fills our hearts. Do not think for an instant that such a prayer won't be answered.

Here endeth the lesson,

LSP

The Time Has Come For You To Choose

 

What's it to be, kleptocrat korporate kommies or drain the swamp MAGA? Your call, punters.

What can we say? Time has come for you to choose, better get it right.

Love,

LSP