Matthew 5:5
September 21, 2023
FEAST OF SAINT THOMAS OF VILLANOVA – 22 SEPTEMBER
September 22, 2023
THE 21st OF SEPTEMBER
TO LIVE RIGHT FOR THE LORD TO THE END IS CONDITIONED BY TOTAL SURRENDER
Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.- 1 Corinthians 5:6-8
In order to please God, we need to surrender all to the Lord and renounce everything that God does not like in our lives. The devil will try to use any sinful habit that we used to have, to make us go back to the old sinful way of living. We must realize that since we asked Jesus to be our Lord and Savior, our spiritual being (inner being) is completely new and we are not slaves to sin anymore. We are the temples of the Holy Spirit, who is always ready to help us, when we ask, and helps us resist temptation.
The more we seek to be in God’s presence and to feed on His Word, our minds will be renewed and we will be transformed into becoming more like Jesus. Only by doing so can we erase the old “worldly programming” that Paul called “old leaven,” which represents the life lived without Christ and replace it with the truth of God’s Word, that will start to change us into a “new lump.” Only if we feed ourselves on God’s Word and spend time in His presence on a daily basis can we change our old, “malice and wicked” behavior and become sincere and full of truth.
SUGGESTED PRAYER
Thank You Lord Jesus that through Your sacrifice I received Your salvation. Dear Father, please show me if there is still something that I have not surrendered to You, that may defile me, by being “old leaven.” Lord, please help me to stop allowing my old carnal nature and habits to rule me and to glorify You by living pure, as my mind is reprogrammed by replacing the “old leaven” of the old worldly mindset with the “unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” that I find in Your Word. In the Name of Jesus I pray. Amen.
Source: thetruthstandsforever
