DAILY DEVOTIONAL, (SATURDAY 11 MARCH 2017)

Reading the Liturgy Saturday, March 11, 2017

Reading First UL 26: 16-19
In the wilderness side of the Jordan Moses spoke to the people, "This day the Lord your God has commanded you to do the statutes and regulations do them faithfully,
with all your heart and all your soul. On this day you received a promise from God: He will be your God, and you will live according to His ways, and keep his statutes, commandments and ordinances, and obey him. And on this day, the Lord has received a promise from you that you will be his special people, as he promised thee, and that thou shalt keep all his commands. He will set you high above all the nations as he had promised, to be praised, celebrated and honored. Then you will be a holy people to the LORD your God, as he has promised. "
Thus saith the Lord.

Psalm Ps 119: 1-2.4-5.7-8
Blessed are those who walk in the law of God.
* Blessed are those whose life is blameless, who walk in the law of God. Blessed is the person who holds the warnings of his, who seek Him with all their heart.
* You alone have delivered thy precepts, to be held in earnest. It would steady my life to hold on thy statutes!
* I will praise you with an honest heart, when I was studying law - the law - thy fair. I will hold on thy statutes,
Do not leave me entirely.

Introduction to the Gospel 2 Cor 6: 2b
Time is the accepted time. Today is the day of salvation.

Gospel reading Matthew 5: 43-48
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said to His disciples, "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Because then you may be the children of your Father in heaven. For He makes His sun rise
on the evil and the good person as well, the rain was lowered him to the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Is not publicans also do so? And if you only greet your brothers only, what lebihnya than the actions of others? Are not people who do not know God do that much? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. "
Thus the Gospel of the Lord.

Devotional.
Today Jesus teaches us to love your enemy. This teaching seems absurd, does not love always have a place in the relations between family members, between friends and between them we prefer?
Love makes us able to personally call out myself as father, mother, sister or friend. Conversely when love was replaced by hatred, that person becomes the enemy. Therefore, we would ask, "How is it possible to attribute the" love "with" the enemy "? Are they not contradictory. But that does not mean they are not related to each other. For if because of love anyone can call himself beyond personal friend, it is not possible for you, the enemies turn into friends.
Through today's Gospel, Jesus was about to show us another dimension of love. Love is not just a condition or requirement to establish relationships with friends and the people we care about. But in love there is a power and a force capable of changing the people hostile, vengeful each other, hurt each other, persecute or betray your good standing.
One way to love your enemy as we have heard in today's Gospel reading, by praying for them. Indeed, if just pray only that easy, but if the enemy do pray with all your heart, we will find great difficulty, because it means blessed pray to God for him. Praying enemy means ask blessings, mercy and the goodness of God for the person whose conduct is precisely not bless us.
After all pray for the enemy is not enough, for they actually love one's enemies need to demonstrate a clear stand in front of each other. That is why Jesus said that we need to greet, greet and smile. No matter whether it's an act of love will be rewarded with love or not, but the important thing is that we have tried to love that person.
How happy if we live with love, no hostility, so everywhere will find a friend. We try to be perfect, to be humble, to achieve the objectives of our life of Jesus Christ, the Perfection. With repent, renew themselves from day to day, we direct your life in perfection. Perfectly, our identity in God's likeness, materialized.

Item contemplation.
"It was his own father, so surely he dared ride" commented a spectator to a small child (6 years old) who bravely join a circus performer who runs his bike on a rope in a height of 50 meters. The trust of a child to his father deserves thumbs up. The father himself, of course, be cautious with that game. How could a father give up his woe in the game that pleases themselves.
 The boy was certainly proud to play along with her parents. He felt proud of the skill possessed father. He, too proud can certainly imitate the greatness that belongs to his father he wanted to be proud of his father to do something like that carried his father is a future goals that exist in a child.
Today's Gospel reminds, that we are children of the Father in heaven, which of course, we must dare "perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect existence", "which makes the rising sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unjust "Pride ourselves as His children is not enough just in words, but it should be quite apparent in the attitude and actions of life.
If indeed we can love others without partiality? If indeed we can love your enemy and pray for those who persecute us? Yes, Jesus did not lie to us. When Jesus asked for something and we must do, it is because He knows that we are able and capable of doing. Jesus knew what was there and held his people. And undeniably course, Jesus told us, but would not let us do everything by myself.
God is a loving Father. She will always be with his people. If the tax collectors can only love others, especially we who pride ourselves as sons and daughters of the Father in Heaven. But pride is not enough. We need to have the Father's heart. Said St. John Chrysostom "You can not call the God Father of all that is good, if you have a heart that is inhumane and cruel"


Prayer.
O Lord, help us thy people, to be perfect. Thus, we can image of Thee as you want in our creation. Amen.