November 28
'Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.’ Matthew 7:21
Bible reading: Isaiah 58:1-11 (Go to the Bible passage)
How can some people bear it, to pray year after year to a god who never answers! Always they obediently attend the services that are held for their god and with a smile they listen to the good words that are spoken by the clergymen. They bow their heads like reeds when called to do penance and wipe the tears from their eyes, but their god is a dead god who does not answer their prayers, and the heavens stay closed… How do they bear it!
What a relief when one can leave such a barren religion and does not need to fear that assumed supreme being anymore. But how unsettling when one then meets people who rejoice in their God. People who ask their God for counsel and are answered from heaven. People who do not listen noncommittally to beautiful words, but go out in the world to set the oppressed free, to share their food with the hungry, to provide the poor wanderer with shelter, and to clothe the ones who are less prosperous.
When one meets people like these, then sometimes the conscience awakes and if the spirit of criticism cannot stifle the conscience, then a desire arises for a real communion with the living God, as God Himself teaches us.
However, who really wants to receive God’s answer to his calling - who wants to experience God’s guidance and to be strengthened by Himself - must do away with the yoke of oppression by stuffy rules and must stop with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and instead kneel down at the cross of Jesus. For only there we will find the faith and peace that encourage us to let go of all the human rules we have been taught, and to go new ways, in the footsteps of the living Lord. For He is our example in everything.

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