Hearing and Doing (Tuesday, Week 25, Year 2)

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With the proliferation of churches and religious movements, we should be expecting the world to be much better than it was many years ago. At every corner, there are churches. On Sundays, most churches are filled with hundreds and thousands of “active” worshippers all listening to the Word of God and singing praises unto His Name. At every moment, pastors are preaching and people are listening (or pretend to listen) to the Word of God. Some people openly and boastfully admit that they will never be tired of singing praises unto the Name of the Lord. All of this is beautiful and should be encouraged. But I am sure Jesus must be worried that there are VERY LITTLE CONCRETE ACTIONS that prove that people have been positively influenced by worship and by His Words.

What happened in the Gospel Reading (cf. Luke 8:19-21) served as a very good opportunity for Jesus to make it clear that membership in His family is not determined by biological, religious, denominational or social ties or connections. He explained further by adding that the members of His family (His brother, sister or mother) are “those who hear the word of God and do it” (Luke 8:21). 

Today, we see people who are very comfortable in their evil and fraudulent activities giving more to the Lord in order to attract more blessings from God or to show how active they are in the Church or how closer they are to God. We can’t justify our disobedience to God’s word with a show of religion. The Old Testament is suffused with instances where the people of Israel who claimed to be the “Chosen of God” stubbornly disregarded the Word of God and worshipped other gods. The word of God strongly admonishes today that “to do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice” (Proverbs 21:3).  


  

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