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Text Box: or lessened our capacity or ability to experience God’s Love for us. That is why experiencing the love which another person, another human, has for us, is so important. For we can readily see that love, and can accept and reciprocate that love more easily than we can see, experience, and reciprocate the Divine Love God has for us. Thus the love between spouses can lead to a real appreciation of the Divine Love we receive from God, and a loving response from us to God. When we pick up our cross and follow Christ, if all we pick up is a cross and pain and suffering, then we are not picking up our cross, or we are not following Christ. We are just picking up pain and suffering. When we pick up our true cross, and when we follow Christ God, we pick up the Divine Love God has for us. Yes, we experience the pain and suffering, but we also experience the wonderfulness of God’s Divine Love for us. And the experience of that wonderfulness of Divine Love is much stronger than the pain and suffering. We then gladly experience the pain and suffering and offer it to God for it cleanses us and enables us to experience the wonderfulness of Divine Love even more. The pain and suffering clean the blemishes on our soul, and the cleaner our soul becomes, the more we are able to and do experience the wonderfulness of God’s Divine Love for us. So you can understand how picking up your cross and following Christ God is a joyful thing. And you can also understand how just picking up any old cross and carrying it can not be a joyful thing. In the Divine Liturgy and the reception of the true Body and Blood of Christ God, we receive the essence of God, God’s very self, the most thorough reception of God possible for most of us in this world. There is a link between Sacramental

Text Box: Holy Communion in the Divine Liturgy and Sacramental Confession and Absolution. That link is that we receive the same essence, the same uncreated energies, of God. The Divine Love and Life which can only be received in Sacramental Holy Communion, by eating Christ’s Flesh and drinking His Blood, are true Divine Life. It is unique to Sacramental Holy Communion. But the Divine Love received in Holy Communion is the same Divine Love received in Sacramental Confession and Absolution. The Divine Love received in Holy Communion, and the Divine Love received in Sacramental Confession and Absolution, effect us in similar ways, and in different ways. In both there is a strengthening of our love for God and the Divine Life in us. But in Sacramental Confession and Absolution there is an additional cleansing of the soul so it receives and experiences Divine Love more than it did before it received the Sacrament. The embarrassment of confessing one’s sins is made negligible in comparison to the relief of having the tar of sin removed, and the Divine Love in Sacramental Confession and Absolution strengthens the desire to never sin again, to never reject God’s Love even a little, for that Divine Love is so wonderful and desired so much that one wishes nothing to diminish it even just a little. The same Divine Love received in Sacramental Communion, strengthens the soul so it can overcome temptations, just a good food strengthens the body so it can do its work, and thus the soul can and does experience Divine Love even more completely. Ref: Gal. 4:22-31; John 6:1-15 +

Text Box: BELIEVING IN GOD AS HE REALLY IS, IS REAL IMPORTANT In many ways your journey to your eternity is similar to traveling on a mountain. There are places where the journey is easy, others where it is difficult, sometimes there is little or no danger, and at other times there is great danger. If you know where you are going and how to get there you have a good probability of safely arriving at your destination. But if where you intend to go does not exist, you will wander all over the mountain and never find rest. Your bleached bones will be scattered by the elements and wild creatures. Those who believe in a god of their own creation or the creation of the imagination of other men are like the person who stands at the top of a high mountain cliff, jumps off, and as they travel through the air, think they are flying. All the different concepts of God have been around since the beginning of mankind, both the false ones and the accurate ones. The Devil, who early in his relationship with mankind discovered he could have the best effect if he persuaded humans that he, the Devil, does not exist, does everything he can to swell human pride in making people believe they can comprehend God. Thus people make their own god into their own image and likeness - they create the kind of god they desire, which is themselves, and they worship it. They are falling off the mountain and think they are flying. The Apostles and Disciples of Christ did not really know what to expect in the Messiah, for God’s plan was being revealed to them even after Our Saviour’s resurrection. So they can be excused in their lack of comprehension. While mankind of today can be excused in its lack of proper execution of God’s plan and desires, because of the various temptations and trials on each individual and the effects of the sins of others on us, hence repentance,

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