1 PETER 1:15
"BE HOLY IN ALL THAT YOU DO, JUST AS GOD WHO CALLED YOU IS HOLY."
“No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on a hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to others, you do nothing great.”
― John Chrysostom

Daily Bible Verse / Reflection

Our thoughts are not your thoughts O God.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways—oracle of the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55: 8 - 9).

Sunday 20th September 2020, 25th Week in Ordinary Time.

Where can we see examples of God's ways and thoughts so different from humans? Two examples come to mind:

#1 Prayer: God does not answer every prayer literally. Saints who are masters of Prayer like St Augustine have taught that God treats us like children who at times do not know what they want. God knows exactly what we need and when we need it. God acts according to His knowledge and providence.

#2 Divine Providence: God governs this world through His most loving and powerful Providence. We tend to think that God's Providence works only in big ticket items like birth and death and moments of big changes in life. God's Providence is operational every moment, in every thing and everywhere. It is not from chance springs any of the comforts we enjoy in life but from God’s gracious ordaining.

Our Gospel of today from Matthew 20: 1 - 16 shows how God's thoughts and ways are so different from our thoughts and ways. We should take Jesus seriously when He says often that in the Kingdom of Heaven, be prepared to see the first last and the last first.

"Summon the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first." (Matthew 20: 8).
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God is just but not fair.
"I am the Good Shepherd, says the Lord; I know my sheep, and mine know me." (John 10: 14).

Daily Bible Verse @ SeekFirstcommunity.com