What sacrifice may be involved?
1. The very act of God becoming human in the person
of Jesus Christ was the amazing act of God saying yes
to humanity. And this act of God saying yes to us has
been understood and celebrated since the very earliest
church gathered.
2. By Saying “ yes ” to God, we are essentially
Saying that He is the most important thing in our lives,
and that all good things spring from that wonderful fact.
In the book of John, Jesus says : 34 ”I give you a
new commandment: love one another. Such as my love
has been for you, so must your love be for each other.
This is how all will know you for my disciples—
your love for one another.” We have a special challenge
each and every day to live with love.
Some days are easier than others.
3. There have been a few times in my Christian walk
when I know that others, and some of them very close
to me probably wanted to rebuke me and thought I’d
lost my mind. But when God the Holy Spirit speaks
to your heart and gives you a Divine purpose, a Mission,
a Vision and a Dream it’s always best to say “YES”
to His will. In the end, it is always the best!
4. In the Gospel of Luke, Mary says yes to angel Gabriel,
who asks her to bear God's son. And she
does so in perfect freedom. As do we—in our own lives.
Mary was that faithful follower, she said her “yes”
to God both in moments of joy and sorrow. God meets
us in myriad ways, through nature, through prayer,
especially through people “For Christ plays in the
ten thousand places, lovely in eyes and limbs not his,”
as the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote.
God invites us to join him, he invites us to follow him,
he invites us to create with him.
5. You have a plan for the rest of your life.
God has a plan for the rest of your life.
Are they the same? What if God’s plan for your life
is far bigger, far more risky, and far more fulfilling
than what you had planned?
6. Who did Jesus call as his disciples?
Plain, ordinary people like you and me.
God issues us all an invitation to a fuller life.
We first received the invitation at our Baptism,
but God’s plan for us doesn’t end there.
7. He calls upon us to use the precious gifts
he has given to us throughout our lives. Let me emphasize:
we don’t have to be perfect to say “yes” to God…and
He doesn’t expect us to be perfect after we say “yes”.
He loves us as we are…although it certainly becomes
more difficult to do bad things once we start dong
good things.
8. Mother Teresa could have lived a very rewarding
and relatively comfortable life in a Polish convent,
but God asked her to consider another path, which led
her to the “poorest of the poor” in India.
He didn’t command her to go there, but he asked and she
said yes.
9. Now, obviously, we aren’t all called to do to heroic things
like Mother Teresa, nor like many of the saints and
martyrs— but each and every one of us has our own
unique talents that God asks us to share.
God values all of these.
10. We know that God will ask things of us again
and again, just as we ask God for his help time and
time again. And by continually saying “yes” to God,
we can have the satisfaction that the Apostle Paul
felt near the end of his life, when he knew that he had
“fought the good fight, and run the good race”.
What a tremendous blessing that must be.
11. God will not ask anything of us that we are not capable of doing.
But how will he ask us? Probably not by letter, Fed-Ex,
telephone call or even e-mail. Not even via Twitter.
For some of the saints in the Bible he appeared as
a burning bush or as a voice out of a thundercloud,
but I wouldn’t count on that. He certainly has plenty
of other ways. It may be a gentle stirring of the soul,
a pang of conscience, or an unexplained feeling of elation.
God does ask us to do things—or not to do things—in subtle ways.
12. Then too, let’s not forget that prayer
is a two-way conversation…where we listen as much as we talk.
We ask many things of God, so we shouldn’t be
surprise if he asks many things of us.
If we listen carefully, we will discern what God is asking.
13. And when God does ask something of us,
what can we say? We have the right to say “no” because
He doesn’t make us slaves. We can say, “let me think
about it and get back to you” or we can say “too busy now,
perhaps when I retire” or “I’d rather serve you in some
other way” or any number of other answers.
But the answer most pleasing to God is most likely this one: “YES”.
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Peace and Love
Rev.Bola
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