Daily Thoughts - Purchased
"For you say, 'I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything,' and yet do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white garments to put on so that your shameful nakedness may not be exposed, and buy ointment to smear on your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and chastise. Be earnest, therefore, and repent." Revelation 3:17-19
Do we have to buy our way into Heaven? No, it is a free gift, given to us by Jesus. We have been purchased at a price, the price of an innocent man without sin who accepted our sins. " O God, whose only-begotten Son, by His life, death and resurrection, has purchased for us the rewards of eternal life;" So what is Jesus saying in His word about buying?
Jesus is chastising the Church for neither being hot or cold, for being lukewarm. For enjoying the comforts of life, feeding self and has no concern for other. Those in this condition are comfortably going to hell while they attend to self.
To buy means to commit, to own and accept the responsibility of what one purchased. To take both the good and that which we don't like along with it. A purchase will stretch us, remember your first house, it was a commitment.
If we are to understand the rewards of eternal life, it begins with following Jesus. Study his life, it was not a stroll in the park with weekly church attendance. He did what His Father asked of Him and it stretched Him, literally! He lived out His faith and that is gold being refined, that is being blind and seeing what life is about.
Dear Lord God, under Your direction we are being refined, we are seeing what the eye can not see. There is a joy that everyday life reveals to those willing to commit. Your words are not always easy but they are more than rewarding. Thank You for the gift of this day and the payment that it offers those willing to follow. Help my unbelief. Amen.
Mary, Mother of the Word Incarnate, Pray for us.
St Joesph, Most Ardent, Pray for us.
Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world. 1 John 4:4b
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