You Are the Salt

     "You are the salt of the earth. But if salt looses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lamp stand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may  see your good deeds and glorify your Heavenly Father."- Mathew 5:13-16
     In this Bible passage, Jesus is giving us an extremely important analogy. He calls us the salt of the earth. What does He mean by that? Well, if you think of table salt and what its' purpose is, it makes sense. We use salt to season our food and to enhance the flavor of it. Salt isn't really a necessity, but we use it anyways and it makes our food taste better when we do use it. We are like this salt because God doesn't need us to follow Him. He gives us free will and lets us choose what we want to do and who we want to follow. God has millions of people that He created, like millions of tiny grains of salt. So, if He looses a few, yes, it hurts Him deeply, but He can go on and it really effects us more deeply when we don't choose to follow Him. However, when we do choose to follow Him, it pleases Him greatly.
     The next part says "But if salt looses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot." By this statement I think Jesus is telling us to stay on top of our faith. If we go out and are praising His name and living the life He wants us to only part time, then what good does that do? We should be living a life of praise glorifying Him at all times! Otherwise, we cannot season the earth and evangelize to others like we have been called to do.
      Next, Jesus calls us the light of the world. We are the light of the world because we are all called by him to shine and spread His word. Just like when you turn a light on in a room and it illuminates the entire space, we are called to let the Holy Spirit shine through us and bring the good news to the entire world. Wherever we may go He wants us to be confident about proclaiming His name.

     "A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lamp stand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify you Heavenly Father." In this last part of the passage, He relates us to a city on a mountain. A city on a mountain is not able to be hidden because it stands above everything around it. If someone lived on a mountain, and terrorists came to attack their village, it would be hard for the village to hide themselves and enforce protection. This is how God wants us to be. He wants us to live with so much love and joy that we cannot hide it and we don't want to hide it. He wants us to not be afraid and hide the light we have shining in us, but instead live by it and pass it on to others. He wants our lights to shine so that others who may have never heard of His name, or heard of His good deeds may learn of them. God gave us free will to choose what we want, but He wants us to all have the chance to accept Him into our hearts. By living a life like Christ, we can show others that God is within us and that acknowledging Christ in your life as your teacher and savior brings the most joy.

     As you go out and continue to live your life, remember these points from Mathew chapter 5. Remember that the Lord calls us each by name to evangelize to His people. We are called to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. We shouldn't be afraid to hide the fact that He is within us and we should be willing to go out and do His will all the time, no matter the cost. Let your light shine, because you never know what kind of an impact God could allow you to leave on someones' life.

The Concequences of Killing

     How would you feel if someone just decided that you weren't important enough to live? What if someone decided that they would just kill you off so that they wouldn't have to deal with you? 55 million lives have been lost because people don't value the sanctity of a human life. People don't realize that "A person is a person no matter how small." At the moment of conception, a precious life is formed inside a mother's womb. No matter how small the child maybe at the time, that baby inside a mother's womb is a living breathing life that God has created!
      In our society today, sex has become more recreational and less of a serious matter. The purpose of sex is to procreate! Society doesn't teach us that. Society says that if a women becomes pregnant, it is her choice to keep the child or abort it. Yet, it shouldn't be this way. A human life is precious and whether a person is on the verge of death of developing in the womb, they are just as important as everyone else.
     Abortion has taken over 55 million souls. Abortion is murder. It is the murder of pure innocent babies who have done nothing to deserve their pain. Why should these children have to deal with the consequences of our actions? They shouldn't! We should have no right to abort these babies that God has given to us. God has a reason for everything and He grants us with the gift of these precious lives, but we choose to destroy them. Imagine all of the amazing people we are missing from our life, or could be missing in the future if we keep allowing abortion to be legal. Our future husbands, and wives, our children's husbands and wives, our classmates that should be beside us, doctors that could cure diseases like cancer, all could have been lost to abortion. God has plans for us to follow in our lives and abortions tamper with God's optimum plans for us.
     Many think that abortion is wrong if the sex happened by choice, but in a rape situation, the mother should have the right to abort the child. The baby still cannot help the circumstances that it has been brought into, it has still done nothing wrong! Again, why should the child have to deal with the circumstances of our misfortunes? A life is a life no matter how it has been conceived. But, what if I know my child will be born with a disability? Well, God has a purpose for creating them that way! They are no less of a person because they are born with a disability.
     Some people conceive children and think that their families are too big, or it isn't the right time, or they cannot support a child with the financial circumstances. Abortion is not the answer. There are so many organizations, such as Birthright, that help pregnant women needing financial support for their children. If raising the child is not an option, adoption agencies are very accepting. There are so many people in the world who may not be able to have children, or may just feel called to adoption who would love to accept a child into their home. Babies are so wanted! Yet, we keep thinking they are insignificant, and we can keep murdering them.
     Abortions should be illegal. They don't only murder the babies, but they also leave most women with emotional scars.We need to stand up for the lives that cannot stand up for themselves and inform people who don't know the truth about abortions! Abortion was legalized 40 years ago in the Roe vs. Wade case. Norma McCorvey, a teen, claimed she was rapped and wanted to legalize abortion so she wouldn't have to have her baby. However, 28 years later, she revealed that in fact she had not been raped and she had gotten pregnant with her boyfriend after prom. Since then, she has tried to change the views of people all over the world in proclaiming how wrong she was. Abortion itself was legalized upon a lie. How then, can it possibly be right?

Living In Love




"In this life we can not always do great things, but, we can do small things with great love."~ Mother Theresa

     Doing things with great love, as Mother Theresa said, is one of the most important things that we can do. We should all strive to live lives that are examples of God's unconditional love. However, that doesn't mean it is always easy. If we live a life of complete unconditional love, all our actions, thoughts, hopes and desires must be done of love. Not only for love of yourself either, our actions and thoughts have to be for the love of everyone around us and for the glory of God.

     When I talk about this unconditional love, I'm not talking about all the mushy gushy relationship between man and women type of love you see in movies. Love is simply caring for someone. If you care for someone deeply, you want the best for them. You want them to make the right decisions and you want to help them and be there for them in any way you can be. By loving someone, you care about them physically, mentally, and  spiritually. No matter what you are there for them to help them through the good and the bad for better and for worse to offer endless forgiveness and to be a good example. That is what loving someone is.

     When you are mad because someone has wronged you, you have to forgive them and continue to love that person. If your having a bad day and everything seems to be going wrong, you cannot take your anger out on those around you because that isn't portraying a life of love. If someone tells you something and is seeking help for their past actions, you cannot judge them on it, you must love them unconditionally anyway.

     God does this everyday! We betray Him so many times and sin again and again. yet, He forgives us endlessly. He doesn't take His anger out on anyone, He always thinks positively and tries to help us. If we seek Him for help, He will be overjoyed! He already knows everything about us, and seeking Him for help just shows how much we care about our Lord, and how humbly we act towards Him. He will never stop loving us for our actions. So why can't we offer Him that much love? Why can't we love others

unconditionally?

     St. Augustine said, "God loves each of us as if there were only one of us." This is so true! He loves us so much that He had His only son sacrificed for us upon the cross for our sins and for our mistakes. We are granted eternal life in heaven and endless forgiveness no matter what, because He loves us so much. The Lord loves us deeply and wants the best for each and everyone of us. Even when we think we are standing alone, we never are. The Lord is always standing right beside us.

     Despite all the mistakes we make daily, He still loves us. We are all called to live like that. We are called to love like Him and live a life of love. It is hard, and it will not always be easy. Love is a sacrifice, just like Jesus was sacrificed on the cross because of His love for us. But it is what we are all called to, and it is a way of life you cannot miss out on. So do all the little things with great love! So that we maybe living proof of His love for us.