Title: Spirituality
Content These days, there are many people suffering from atopic dermatitis. It is usually said that it is the influence of heredity and environment. I heard a sad story that atopic dermatitis did not occur due to pollution and had to immigrate to Canada. There are various causes, but it is said that there is a constitution that is easy to get sick. It is said that treatment is possible by changing the constitution through eating.
It is said that our constitution is important for health. In the same environment, some people catch a cold, some don't, and some people get skin diseases, but some people are okay. This shows the importance of the body. In this way, constitution means the basis of our body, or the nature of our body. We want our bodies to be healthy.
Likewise, our spiritual life also has a spiritual constitution. I hope it will be an opportunity to check what kind of spiritual constitution you have now and how you are living your life of faith. I wish for the blessing of improving our spiritual constitution to a figure worthy of God's sight.
Experts say that many Americans these days have this spiritual constitution. First, the attitude towards the church is a “self-centered tendency”. What are the direct benefits to me through the church? What can the church do for me? Attend church with these questions. There are people with a spiritual constitution who go out hard when there is something the church gives me and leave the church if even a little responsibility is imposed on me or if more devotion is required from me.
The second characteristic is “I am alone”. I go to church because I am a Christian, but I do not try to have relationships with people because I am afraid of being too involved in the church. What would you do if even the evangelist caught your eye and said that he would come to visit you? I live a religious life, and when I come to church, I don't know the name, I don't know the saint, only the face is ripe. The tendency to lead a religious life as a single person is also the spiritual constitution of many people today.
The third characteristic is “critical tendency”. While he lacks devotion to the church, he is very busy finding flaws. When we think of the church, there is no such concept as the church that is the body of Christ, the church bought with blood, and we think of the church as a big market. Church members think of the church from a consumer's point of view. If they demand any devotion from me, if there is any inconvenience to me, or if they feel that they are harming me even in the slightest, I tend to talk to the church mercilessly in one way or another. With this inclination, he attends this church for a while, and if he doesn't like it, he sniffs at other churches, saying, "Is there anything better?"
It is no exaggeration to say that this is the tendency of many people today. Would this be a spiritual constitution suitable in the eyes of God? Today, when many people think of the church and their spiritual life, they judge it as a consumer's point of view. It is becoming such a spiritual constitution. If they meet my needs, they work hard, but if they don't meet my needs, more and more people snoop around, saying, "Isn't there something better?" In other words, it is our reality today that there are too many people who live a religious life with spiritual constitution like consumers or shoppers. However, if we have such a spiritual constitution and live a life of faith, we cannot escape from spiritual stagnation. You cannot grow spiritually.
We need to improve to the spiritual constitution that God desires. The heart toward God and the heart toward the church must be spiritual constitutions that are suitable in the sight of God. If there is a spiritual constitution that we must restore while living our faith, it is love. We do not invest a certain amount in our children when we raise them, and then we go to college and go to work, and then we do not invest in such a way that we lose a certain amount each month in our old age. The relationship between parents and children is not an investment. it's love What will you do for me? They do not raise their children with these expectations. If it is sweet, it is swallowed, and if it is used, it is not raised. Raising children with love.
The same is true of our hearts toward Jesus. The same is true for the church. We hope for the blessing of being transformed into a spiritual constitution that loves Jesus and loves the church. Loving Jesus and loving the church is not only possible when we do great things. You don't know how sensitive a loving heart is
. Some of the deacons in our church are raising children of single mothers. When a mother cannot raise a child, the child is almost abandoned. A few days after birth, the child is brought home and raised for about six months. Raising children with sincerity. After about six months, the Holt Welfare Society sends the child to an adoption site. They usually go abroad. When they go, the deacon brings the child and prays for him. However, it is said that this child feels it is time to leave the butler's (mother's) arms. It is said that a child who ate and slept well looked up at the ceiling without eating and continued to shed tears. It is said that after hours or days after the child cries, a phone call from Holt comes. Now that the adoptive family has been decided, a call comes in asking them to bring them to the Holt Center. It is said that the child already knows the feeling and sheds tears because it is difficult to leave the mother's arms. It is said that once she had to leave, she held onto her mother's cross necklace without letting go, so everyone shed tears.
Thus, the heart of love is sensitive. A child who is only six months old feels the warm love of her mother, who has given her all her heart. It is said that he sheds tears knowing that it is time to leave without anyone telling him. The heart of love is sensitive.
A heart for Jesus and a heart for the church also need such a spiritual constitution to truly love. More specifically, when I think of the church, how can I make it convenient for me as a shopping consumer? What benefits can I get? Instead of looking at the church with this kind of heart, how can I confess my love for Jesus through the church? I hope you will be blessed with this spiritual constitution.
Jesus tells us: “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him.” Here is a concrete way of love. That is, if you love me, you will keep my words. The decisive test to determine the presence or absence of love is “obedience”. Pleasant emotions, willingness to sacrifice, passion, these things are important, but the touchstone of love is in obedience.
God wanted to see if Abraham really loved God more or if he loved his son Isaac. He tells him to take his son and go up to Mount Moriah. He thought that obedience as he said was an expression of love. Because the decisive way to test love or not depends on obedience.
These days, there is a tendency to really hate to hear the word obedience. obedience must be First, you have to be rational when thinking with your head. Refusal to obey unreasonable demands. You don't obey just because you're rational in your head. You must be moved by the heart to obey. In other words, it is the appearance of modern people today to be rational when thinking with the head, and obey only when it comes to the heart and moves.
There is a famous anecdote of St. Francis. Two young men came to visit Frances to become a disciple. Francis, who was planting cabbage, said to the two young men, "I have a place to go, so you guys are planting cabbage instead of me, but plant cabbage, but plant the roots into the sky and the leaves into the ground." . After a while, Francis returned, and a young man planted it strangely, with the roots in the sky, as Francis had asked. However, one young man thought, 'The old man must have misunderstood.' And he planted the roots well in the ground. Francis said to the young man who planted the roots, "You planted them properly with the cabbage root as the ground." He's a reasonable and smart person. But you are not worthy to be a true disciple of Jesus." And to the young man who planted the cabbage upside down, he said, "You are a young man who is unconditionally obedient and worthy to be a disciple of Jesus. Only you will allow me to be your disciple."
It makes sense to plant the roots in the ground. logical However, what God wants is rational and logical rather than a spiritual constitution that says “I will follow you, says the Lord.”
The English word for constitution is constitution. This means the constitution. I was surprised. Do constitution and constitution use the same word? Our constitution was made to follow the law of God's Word. I hope that our spiritual constitution will be in obedience to God's Word, trusting and obeying the Lord's guidance.
If I live obediently to the Word, God takes charge of my life. However, if we live in a way that calculates with my short hair and swallows it when it is sweet and spit it out when it is used, I have to take responsibility for our lives by myself. Which side would you choose? Wouldn't it be better to obey and let God take charge of my life?
Take a tour with a package. Your tour guide will prepare a place to eat, a place to sleep, and transportation. I only need to do one thing. All you have to do is go to the place where the guide tells you to go, wait where you are told to wait, and come out where you are told to come out. Nothing to worry about. The important thing is to listen carefully to the guide and just do it. However, if I do not listen to the guide and change my mind, I will have to take responsibility for eating myself and finding a place to sleep. The Holy Spirit is the guide on our life journey. You just have to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit like a small child.
What kind of spiritual constitution do you have now? Am I going to take responsibility for myself just because I have what I have? Do we live with such a constitution that we obey the Word only when it is rational and logical just because we think a little? Let's improve our spiritual constitution.
Augustine wrote the Confessions. At the beginning of the book of Confessions, “The house of my soul is narrow; O Lord, enlarge it. that the Lord may enter into it.” Think about my spiritual constitution. The person inside me is full of greed, and the house of my soul is getting smaller and smaller. My inner man is full of logical and rational judgments, and my soul house is getting smaller and smaller. The person inside me wants to live each day in a fun way, so the house of my soul is getting smaller and smaller.
Dear saint! I hope that the house of my soul will be transformed into a spiritual constitution that gradually expands. If the Lord speaks, I hope that the house of souls that can follow Amen will expand. God, change my spiritual constitution. Help me to obey and follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit as the house of my soul grows bigger and bigger. The house of souls, O God, will be enlarged and will follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit.