Month: August 2015

What does it mean to Love God with Your All?

Bethany Christian Living , ,

Matthew 22:36-40

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. ‘Love your neighbour as yourself. All the law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

God is the Centre of Our Lives

Jesus is telling us that God should be the centre of our lives. That everything we do, eat, drink, get up in the morning and everything we think, say, our rest our coming and going and our prayer life, simply everything about ourselves and our lives should all be circled around our love for God. Many will say that is impossible. It isn’t if we hand the matter over to God, with sincerity and with all humility. We must really want God to be our life and our all. It is a life time commitment. We fall then we get up again and continue on our journey for the sole purpose to get near to God. If you have never tasted God that sounds boring. You would be very surprise to find out you are totally wrong. The closer you get to God, in other words the deeper your love grows for God the more exciting it gets. We still have our trials, because there are demons out there trying to steal our joy and our peace away. The moment you let doubt in, you will lose your joy and peace in one go. The closer you get to God the braver you get and the wiser you become. The world starts to lose its attraction for you. It is a bit like food, the food you hated when you were a child, you now love and it is one of the main ingredients in all your meals.

When You are Too Involved with the World

When people get too involved with the world, they lose their vision of God. And they start to believe in the lies the world teachers. Their heart becomes hardened and lazy in the things of God. Their taste buds go funny. They no longer can taste the sweet things of God. They distance themselves from God and then they complain that God doesn’t care about them, that He is indifferent to their needs. There is another group that has listen to all the lies of Satan and believes in them, we all have been there. He tells you that you are not worthy of God’s love, that you will never be worthy. Please don’t listen to those lies, they are so untrue. Jesus sacrifice has made you worthy if you will only believe in His love. Believe He has paid the whole price for all your sins. I have seen a vision once I speak of it quickly. Jesus was on one knee and the other knee was sweeping behind Him, with hands wide open to the imaginary sinner, begging and begging him to look at him instead of his sins, but the man was full of despair, because he would only look at his sins and not at Jesus. There was more to it but I won’t go in to any more details. If you want to read some more about it, it is in one of my chapters in my e-book “God has spoken to Me.” You can buy it on this site it is under the name of Susan Darling.

Genuinely Following Jesus

In your life if you are genuinely following Jesus, it is full of promotions to a higher state of grace and I find the first step is always the hardest. Another word for promotion could be conversions. You are always get converted to something bigger and better. It always cost more, but so does your love, joy and peace and a whole lot of other things does too. And of course you have the ability to shine more, because God’s Spirit lives in you. So people can recognise Him in you and start to learn a little about who He is. Your prayers are more powerful. There are many reasons for this, for one thing, you understand God’s will better. You know what prayers pleases Him and which prayers He will not answer, because they do not glorify Him. The more obedient you are to Him, the stronger are your prayers, because He is so please to see that you are faithful to Him. The more obedient you are, you tend to grow in faith too, which helps in seeing your prayers answered. When you pray you do not try to use God. Many people try to use God and if they get what they want, they are not grateful and go on their worldly way showing no respect for God and what He has done for them. We don’t like being used, so why do we think we should get away with it with God.

We Are Not Expected To Do This All On Our Own.

isI2TNE013God does not expect us to come closer to Him by our own strength. We will fail time and time again. We are simply have no goodness of our own to draw from. Love is The Holy Spirit, so is courage, obedience, patience, friendliness and etc. These things are spiritually and come from God’s Spirit. So how can you become courageous if you don’t call on God to give His Holy Spirit to you, so that you can become courageous? Courage is a gift from God. You can’t manifest it all by yourself it has to be given to you. And God is all eager to give it to His children. To grow in grace you have to keep asking and asking to you get it. Why does, God takes so long sometimes to give you His Spirit? The reason is because if you keep at it and don’t give up, it increases the hunger for God. The greater the hunger the greater the grace God will give you. Of course God wants to give you a whole lot more than what you are asking for. I have used courage as an example but this rule applies to all graces that you want to grow into.

We Were Made to be Loved

Bethany Christian Living ,

isZTIQ1EJFI think young children and domestic animals can teach us many things about love. They respond to it so beautifully. They love to be loved and so do we. Many of us have been hurt and betrayed by so many people, including people that we love the most so often, that we start to shy away from showing our true feelings in case we might get hurt. The problem with that, people then start to judge us as being cold and indifferent, which we are not in most cases. In this very bad and cruel world good people get hurt often. Just imagine how many times Jesus who is so much more sensitive than we are, how deep the hurt He experienced, when people judged Him so unfairly and refuse His gentle and kind love that He offered them, while He walked on the earth. All people want to be loved unconditionally so badly, but the problem is, if we look around us we see most people are not prepared to give it. Especially unconditional love, which is true love.

If you want love you must also give it

If you want love you must also give it. To do that, it demands us to be generous and courageous. We cannot do it on our own, we need God’s help. We have to be healed first, which means in a lot of cases we have to learn to forgive and accept the fact people are all sinners as we are. If we look deep into our hearts, pride is the sin that stops us from forgiving and loving others freely. To love Jesus is easy, because He is always so kind, but to love a sinner such as ourselves, is so much more difficult, but has to be if we want to prove to Jesus and to the world that we are His true followers.

It is important to see people through the eyes of Jesus. He can see clearly the evil that is in us, He does not pretend it is not there. But He sees more clearly than we do. First He sees who we truly are, and that is total perfection. The image of God Himself. Then He sees all the lies we allowed Satan to deceive us with, which in turn has opened up a door to let those lies manifest in us so much so that we start to believe that the lies are a part of our true nature. Saint John of the Cross explains it this way, we are like a statue that is made out of pure gold, covered with soot. The soot represents our sins. The statue is still pure gold, but we cannot see it if through the soot. All that needs to happen, to see the gold statue is to wash away the soot. Now if that is true about how we see ourselves nothing more than the soot, then it is also true how we see others. So we have to stop looking at the soot in our own lives as well as others, and keep our eyes on what Jesus sees which, ‘is the image of God. ‘

We all have a free will, some have chosen evil out right. They have no desire at this point to change. They stubbornly believe in Satan’s lies. And as a result their lives are full of destruction of one form or another and they destroy everybody else’s lives that cross paths with theirs. They are truly blind spiritual and are in need of lot of prayers from those who can see. You might ask how to love people who are so unlovable. You have to see through the eyes of Jesus. He sees the pure gold and is waiting on us to pray away the soot. You might have to fast and pray for this to happen, but that is exactly what we are called to do. Keep your eyes on the finish product, not on what it looks like now. You must persevere.

Differences such as the Crucifix compared to the empty Cross

Bethany Protestants and Catholics ,

When I was a Presbyterian at church one day I remember Our Minister was explaining defensively why our new church had a large cross at the pulpit. Presbyterians I have been told are the true Protestant Church, because it is in fact the complete opposite from the Catholic Church in many ways. Presbyterians at that time, I don’t know if it still applies, but definitely in those days they didn’t even consider a cross should be placed inside of a church was the correct thing to do. I don’t understand why not. Most Protestants don’t wear a crucifix for example they concentrate on the Resurrection, they say Jesus is now off the cross, He has paid for our sins, so they don’t have crucifixes at all, and they sometimes wear plain crosses instead of crucifixes. Many Catholics on the other hand will wear a crucifix or have a crucifix hanging up on their walls. So they can meditate on the price Jesus has paid for us often. A crucifix is a cross with a figure of Jesus stretched out on it. Devout Catholics want to keep in mind the cost Jesus suffered, so we can really meditate and appreciate what we owe Him. When we do this often, it strengthens our faith and love for Him.

A friend buys a Crucifix

One of my Protestants friends, when she visits my place she often admires my altar. On top of my altar I have a crucifix hanging on the wall. One day she rang me and she was going through a hard time and said that she wishes she had a crucifix like I did. So I invited her to go to a Catholic shop with her where she could buy herself one, which she did. She rang me another day upset because one of her Protestant friends saw her crucifix and was worried about me leading her astray and told her that Jesus has rosed from the dead and that He is not on the cross any more. She said ‘she doesn’t understand how much comfort I get out of seeing the crucifix.’ She said ‘it reminds me every time I see it that Jesus truly loves me and that He has paid for all my sins.’ She was at that time in great need of reinforcing her faith, because the devil was tormenting her so much. I told her that it is important to remember and meditate on the Resurrection, but it is also important to remember how Jesus died for our sins. So that we can have a greater appreciation of what He did for us. Then she picked up and said ‘they are both just as important as each other.’ I said ‘yes.’ People can get so technical or another word for it may be legalistic about their beliefs that they can’t see the forest for the trees, so as to block God’s will from ever happening.

Religious Pictures and Statues

I remember the days when I was a Presbyterian, it was considered wrong to have a picture of Jesus hanging on your wall. It was considered to be idolatry to have a picture of Him. I think back now and wonder if that is how they truly saw it, then the same rule should also had been applied to the pictures that are in their photo albums and the pictures they have of their love ones hanging on their walls. We all love photos of people we love and when we look at them they bring back beautiful memories, especially if they are no longer with us. Pictures of Jesus and the saints, whom we consider our brothers and sisters in Christ, we should have a need to hang their pictures on our walls too. If you truly love Jesus and the people who have truly served Him in their lives, their pictures has the same kind of effect on us as pictures of our love ones have. It makes us feel close to them and because we see them hanging there so often we keeping thinking of them. In just the same way you do with any picture of a family member. This also applies to statures of Jesus and the saints. They have even a greater effect on us. And God does use them many times. There have been so many times when God has used the stature of Mary for instances to draw people’s attention to the times we are living in and warning us to repent. One statue of Mary is known to move her eyes and lips and other statues have been known to weep oil etc. Of course some of those statures are fakes but not all of them. It is important to keep God in your mind all the time. We are suppose to be in love with Him. When people are in love they think of their love one all the time. Pictures and statues help us do that.

Many times God will use them to any person at all, who looks at them reflecting on the person the statues represents. The greater the love and the greater the affection we have for the person it represents the more likely God will use it to bring us even closer to Himself-God. When we look at the picture or statue of Jesus we think of Jesus’s great love for us and all the sacrifices He made for us and how we best can please Him in our day to day life. When we look at pictures or statues of Saints we look at it with affection for the Saints it represents, for how they brought us closer to God, through their examples of their lives that showed us the way to Jesus. Or maybe we are considering the many times they have answered our prayers by interceding to God on our behalf. I remember a friend of mine many years ago had so much faith in Saint Anthony prayers, because He always helped her to find things and so many times it would be done in such a way that it was a miracle, an answer to prayer.

Confusion about the use of Statues

Protestants are often confused about Catholics kneeling in front of a statue and actually believe we are worshiping the statue. That is far from the truth. We are intelligent enough to know a statue is only a statue. We are kneeling at what the statue represents. If it is a statue of Jesus we are worshiping Jesus not His statue. If we are kneeling in front of the statue of Mary or a saint we are showing our respect and are honouring them for their services to God in their life time. And we are also acknowledging for example that they are now reigning with Jesus in heaven as it is written in the bible. We will all reign with Him in heaven if we are faithful to Him on earth. They have made it! We are still on our journey to heaven and we are asking them to pray for us, to help us get there. It is an ancient custom to kneel before another, showing both humility and respect for the other person. It has never meant worship in the past and it still does not mean worship now unless you are kneeling before God, which Jesus is the second person of God. If we look at an example of an old ancient custom such as a man proposing to a woman for her hand in marriage, he would get down on his knees to do this. The woman and the man knew he wasn’t worshiping her, he was showing her that he respected her and he was going to be a good husband for her, which of course was not always the case. It was an act of humility. Humility is not honoured much these days and often when people kneel in front of a statue some people consider the person is worshiping the statue or the person the statue represents.

A fine line between honouring and worshiping a saint

There is a fine line sometimes between honouring and worshiping a saint. I am talking about mature Catholics that know the difference. Because some people go too far with their devotion of a saint, doesn’t mean all Catholics do. Some people will look at for example all the hypocrites that call themselves Christians regardless of what denomination they belong to, and then say all Christians are like that. We know that is not true. Sometimes I think it is a cover up to excuse themselves from following Christ, even when they know He is the true Messiah. And I believe deep down they know Jesus expects us to behave differently from what the many so called Christians are. Only a few Christians stay on the straight and narrow road that leads to eternal life. The visionaries are saying when Jesus comes for His Church at the rapture, only twenty percent of people who call themselves Christians will be ready to go with Him. So let’s be warned and do everything we can to get ready. Lets take the bible seriously and start acted out what Jesus has taught us.

Patron Saints

Bethany Protestants and Catholics ,

I was twenty three years old when I decided to become a Catholic. Originally I was raised as a Presbyterian. My mother was a Catholic so while I was growing up I was learning both the Protestant beliefs and the Catholic’s beliefs alongside each other. So I knew beforehand that Catholics would chose for themselves a patron saint to watch over them during their life time. They chose the patron saint they wanted for themselves at the time of their confirmation. Catholic children can be confirmed into the church at the age of eight years old. Confirmation is a time when you fully enter the church by your own decision. When you are baptised as a baby your parent’s faith covers you, but as you grow older you have to make your own decision. The advantage of being confirmed later, I put more thought into who I wanted to be my patron saint. It was between Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint Francis of Assis. They both had a great influence on me in choosing to become a Catholic.

Why I was attracted to Saint Teresa

is1DPX2JISSaint Teresa was called to reform the Carmelite order by God. So there are now two Carmelites orders. The one Saint Teresa originally belonged too and the one she started. The one she started there are three orders within the one order, they are all considered equal, but have different roles. In the old days you would say the first, second and the third order. I still prefer to think that way myself. The first order is the enclosed order, which I have always been the most attracted to all my life and I wanted to join it, but it seems it was not meant to be. In the first order you stay in the convent and never leave, you are enclosed for life and concentrate on full time prayer, silence, penance and fasting. The second order the religious, live together but they do secular work, which prayer being the most important and the third order that I was privileged to join at a later date for a short time, is the third order, in this order people live in the world just like the rest of us, they go to work, have a career maybe, marry and raise up a family, but all along they live by the Carmelite rule. Which basically is practising a deep prayer life under the care and guidance of the Carmelites order.

I am a real believer in prayer and I have been attracted to the enclosed order from the age of eight years old, I even picked out a name for myself. I said to myself ‘if ever I joined the Carmelite order, I will choose the name ‘the lamb of God.’ When I did decide to join the third order and it was now the time to choose a name I started to think to myself that name was too high for me, that I wasn’t worthy of it, but I could not find another name that I felt connected with, so I am sure God was saying, ‘I want you have the name you chose for yourself when you was eight years of age.’ When my fellow Carmelites asked me who was my patron saint was? They were always completely taken back, because they naturally expected me to have chosen a Carmelite saint, but instead it was Saint Francis of Assis, who started another order, completely different from Saint Teresa.

Why I chose Saint Francis to be my Patron Saint

isSA7LX265If I feel so strongly about prayer and was naturally attracted to the Carmelites, especially the enclosed order, why then did I chose for myself Saint Francis to be my patron saint who is so different? Purely because I knew I lacked self-discipline in the denial section and I thought Saint Francis was very strong in that area. He taught me the importance of carrying my cross. And that if I wanted to go to heaven with all the greats I had to learn to deny myself. Now I can hear all the complaints coming from the Carmelites, which are saying things like ‘what do you think we are doing?’ It is true they practise self-denial too. But it was Saint Francis that convinced me of that. Saint Teresa convinced me of the importance of praying without ceasing.

When a Catholic chooses a patron saint, they take on that person’s name. It is called a confirmation name. So even though I still go by my Christian name, I also have a confirmation name Francis. Protestant’s don’t chose for themselves a patron saint, because they believe that it is a form of worshiping saints. Catholics completely disagree. To worship somebody you have to actually worship them. We do not worship saints, but we definitely honour them. Some more than others. We don’t believe once you are in heaven you have nothing to do, but stand around the Throne worshiping God all the time. There are all sorts of activities going on in Heaven. They are always in the presence of God, doesn’t matter where they are or what they are doing, and they also have work to do, just like the angels in heaven do. Believe it all not! they are even more powerful than angels. While we are on earth the angels are more powerful than we are, but once we have proven ourselves worthy by faithfully serving God on earth, and accordingly to the level of how much we had surrendered to God while we were on earth, will determined how high our ranking is in Heaven and the power that goes with that rank. When I mean we have power I am talking about the power of God working through us, it is a gift from God’s. Protestants may ask how can I be confident of this, the answer is simple. Catholics from its very beginning of it creation, (which we Catholics believe that our church started with the disciple Saint Peter,) people have always have had visions from God and God does reveal secrets to the humble even now, especially now!  Catholics have not received visions as a majority, because somewhere on the line, people started to believe these things only happen to special people. God will talk to anyone who humbles themselves before Him and believes in Him in all truth.

One of My Favourite Saints is Called Sister Josefa Menendez

I read a book on another saint, though she is not canonised by the church, she is by far superior to many of the saints that are. Her name is Sister Josefa Menendez. Her book called ‘the way of divine love.’ Is now a classic and you can still buy it on the internet. She knew what suffering for the Lord was all about. I admire her complete surrender and courage. I had a friend who was very gifted in God’s spirit and I said to her I wanted to change my patron saint to Sister Josefa, and my friend who was a Protestant herself said that God said that I can’t change my patron saint, that my patron saint is Saint Francis. So I learn something that day, how disloyal and how ungrateful I was to Saint Francis.

The Reason Why Saint Francis Got Upset With Me

Once I was going through a period of being terrified of being alone. And I looked at the part of Saint Francis life, being very involved in helping the lepers, the sick and preaching things like that. I forgot all about the times he was alone in prayer with God. So I was calling on another saint, Saint Anthony, the one who lived in the desert. I thought he knew how to be alone, because he lived a life of a hermit for God. So I started calling on him to help me face solitude and then my patron saint, Saint Francis showed up and he showed me how hurt and offended he was with me for not believing that he didn’t love solitude for God. Saints communicate to people too, just like angles do or God himself for that matter. If you do not believe it, is possible then you have closed a door on them, and only by a special grace will it be open to you. What comes to my mind is Saint Paul, he was at first a non-believer and he was on a journey to find the Christians to hand them over to be killed. Jesus appeared to him, and after that experience he became a Christian himself. I believe it happen only because so many Christians at the time were praying for his conversion. There is no proof of what I have just said, it is just something that I believe in. I remember reading about a guy who lived some centuries back, Jesus appeared to him on the cross five times before he converted to Christianity, I believe somebody must have been praying real hard for him and persistently.

Asking Saints to help us

When Catholics call on the saints to help them, it is not the same thing as calling on God to help us. I think that is where there is so much confusion and why Protestants tend to think we worship saints. When we call on saints we believe God gives them the ability to work on earth as another Christ, they are not Christ, but it is the honour God gives to His Children if they have been faithful to Him on earth. I have actually been told by Jesus one day and then the God the Father the next day to intercede through my earthly father who is now in Heaven. To ask my father for help; help would be given to me as if I asked Jesus Himself. I know there is going to be a lot of protest from the Protestant over what I have just said. And of course I can’t prove to anyone that God did spoke to me. All I can suggest is try it for yourself. God’s ways are not like our ways, because we are mean and miserly with our gifts we think God is the same way. God has given us the authority that Jesus has earned for us on the cross as if it is our authority, which we know it isn’t. Jesus has earned it for us because He is no way like us. He is so generous there are no words on earth to describe how generous our God is towards us. Everything He owns He has given to those who serve Him. If we make it to heaven we will rule with Him. He said so it is in the Bible.

Hail Mary

Bethany Prayer

isPLLWHJ3SI had an extract from a book called “The Flame of Love” many years ago, more like some few decades ago.  And I always wanted the book but never had the opportunity to get one, and then one day I thought I wonder if I can get it through the internet and sure enough they on facebook. And you can buy the book. The full title of the book is called “The Flame of Love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” By Elizabeth Kindelmann. I am so glad I have it. Elizabeth Kindelmann received many visitations of Mary and Our Lord and it is full of lesson how to advance in your spiritual life. Mary I see has been asking us to say the Hail Mary differently and it goes like this:

Hail Mary Full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee, blessed are Thou among Women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners, spread the effort of grace of Thy Flame of Love over all humanity now and at the hour of our death. Amen

There is also a Flame of Love rosary she wants us to say:

Sign yourself five times with the cross in honour of Jesus five wounds then you say on the large bead.

Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us who seek refuge in you!

Then on the small beads you say

Holy Mother save us through Your Immaculate Heart’s Flame of Love!

Then you say this prayer three times

Glory be the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen.

Then you finish it off by crosses yourself five times in honour of Jesus wounds again.

The Outside Shell

Bethany Christian Living

I have seen the movie ‘Heaven is for Real’ a few times at the very end of the movie it shows a picture of Jesus painted by a young girl who also went to heaven. The picture claims to be the real picture of what Jesus really looks like. And as always God surprises you. Jesus is not the most handsome man that He could be. God did not chose a body that was extraordinary handsome at all. He is not bad looking by all means, but being human you naturally think God would of chose the best for Himself. When He told people that He was the Messiah, the rabbis did not believe Him or at the very least chose not to believe Him, because He did not come the way people expected Him to. He was not born in a great fortress with a great powerful army, with great wealth and so on. He did the very opposite He was born in a dirty stable, with poor parents and no powerful army as we know it at any rate. He had the whole of Heaven with its powerful army of angles, but there was nothing visible for people to rave about that He was indeed the King of kings.

The Body God Chose For Himself

One thing I notice about the body He chose for Himself, there was no mistaking that He was a man, He was not effeminate like a lot of paintings that portray Him to be. He was very masculine. When I first saw Him I thought He looked to me like a wild man, full of electricity and great love for life and adventure, He was not the quiet sedate person I always imagine Him to be. I wonder what you imagine Him to look like. His love I have experience many times. He has appeared to me many times as a spirit and I only see what God wants me to see and it is usually His eyes full of love, gentleness, kindness and most times joy. I have never seen His body at all only His Spirit. So I imagine Him to look like what His Spirit looks like, but He does not. He just looks like an ordinary man. You know we are told not to judge by appearance and some people do not look beautiful at all, but their souls are extraordinarily beautiful once you come to know them better. I think Jesus was that way.

The Lesson We can Learn from His Humility

I believe everything God does is for a reason. You know the saying ‘kill two birds with one stone.’ I believe what God does is that He performs a great many things at once. I bet He was not the handsome guy that in His day everybody expected the Messiah to be. I believe there may have been people turned away from Him because of it. I think one of the lessons that God is saying ‘I could have given myself, the best of everything. Instead I want to teach you what is really important. And I should know, because I have everything, I can make everything and anything into existence and I am telling you to look much deeper into people and what my Kingdom is all about. Love is far more important than anything else. My very Kingdom foundation stands on love with all the greatness the wonderfulness and the awesome love I have for all of you and all my creations.” That is the message I believe Jesus was telling us, by being so ordinary in the human sense of things. He did extraordinary acts of love. Yet people still walked away from Him, because He did not live up to human expectations of what they thought was important.

Pray For Christian Martyrs

Bethany Prayer

John 4 verses 37 – 38

Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labour.

Why do you believe God is now blessing so many people with conversions, especially in countries where Christianity is out lawed? Why so many people are having dreams about Jesus and being converted to the Christian faith, knowing that they might be put to death in doing so? Why more and more people are being blessed with powerful gifts from the Holy Spirit? Why is God promising us now through His prophets that great revivals are coming all over the world, converting many people to the Lord Jesus Christ, like never before in the whole of history? Could it be due to all the sacrifice Christian Martyrs are going through? I believe it is so. Do you think God will not answer the prayers of His martyrs? I think not. I think the prayers of martyrs are the most powerful prayers of all and their reward in heaven is the greatest of all.

If anybody is following Christ, the martyrs are. It is the highest sacrifice you can give God is your life. And the greatest proof of your love and faithfulness is to give up your life for God. And the greatest witness of all. Nobody can say their faith is hypocritical, self-righteous or fake, can they? They have to really believe in God’s great love and mercy to go through what they are going through.

I believe the least we can do is to pray for them, so that they will receive all the graces they need to hang in there and come out trumps. In the Bible it also says ‘what you sow you reap.’ The merciful will receive mercy. How do we know if one day we might be in the same boat as they are currently in! If we pray for them in earnest, I believe God will help us out too. Your help will not go unnoticed by a loving God, which He is.

The Case for Mary

Bethany Honouring Mary the Mother of Jesus , ,

Exodus 20:12 “Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

We are told we only have to obey Two Commandments, which is to Love God with all your might and love your neighbour as yourself. What a great many Christians do not realise that when you obey the Ten Commandments you are obeying the Two that Jesus has given us. The Ten Commandments explains the Two Commandments in detail. Now if anybody has obeyed the Ten Commandments well, it is going to be Jesus Himself.

Now one of the Commandments from God is to ‘honour your father and your mother.’ We all take it for granted that Jesus honoured His Father in Heaven, but how many stop and think how He also honoured His Mother Mary. I believe it is very important to reflect on this. Jesus is our role model. He is the door, we cannot enter heaven without going through the door which is Jesus Christ. We are all called to imitate Him in every detail.

Try To picture Being A Parent of Jesus

Now try to imagine you are either Saint Joseph the foster father of Jesus or Mary, Jesus Mother depending what sex you are. You have known Jesus from birth, you are always in His Company. You cannot escape His presence, He is always there before you. He lives with you, He works with you, and He eats with you and so on. Now surely all that He is! that beautiful nature of Jesus that you are witnessing all day long, has to rub onto you. You know for yourself the company you keep continually you become. So it is very important to choose friends wisely that they are the people you would like to be.

I do not believe that Saint Joseph and Mary were ordinary people, because they would have absorbed Jesus’s Spirit by just being His parents. We also know the more we think of Jesus, the more we live in His presence the more our own natures changes, we become more Christ like by the day. How much more that would be the case for Saint Joseph and Mary. Jesus depended on them like any child depends on their parents. It is very clear in the bible that Saint Joseph and Mary loved Jesus with their whole heart. If that was not so why would they have searched for Him high and low in Jerusalem for three days and when they finally found Him in the temple, they were overwhelmed when they saw Him. They were so relieved as any parent who loves their child would.

Mary Knows Her Son Jesus Well

Now I will go one step further, Mary understood Jesus’s heart so well as only a mother could. She knew He could not say no to her, because she knew what kind of person He was. She knew her Son. In the book of John 2: 3-10 gives you a glimpse of that. The wedding at Cana. Mary comes up to her Son and says ‘they have no more wine.’ And Jesus replies ‘Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.” Mary ignores what her Son says and turns to the servants and says to them “Do whatever He tells you.” Then Mary goes off and Jesus immediately fulfils Mary, His Mother’s request. She knows her Son. She knew He would do it, because she knew how beautiful His heart works, more than anybody else would have ever done.

Now we know that we all have received all the authority and power Jesus has gain for us on His Cross and through His Resurrection. We know the more we believe in Him the more we have access to that authority and power. We know that Jesus will answer our prayers accordingly to how much we believe in Him and in the way we believe. So what I am saying here is, everybody is at different levels of believing in Him. So everybody is at different levels of demonstrating Jesus in their lives. Mary I believe has the greatest faith of all and then Saint Joseph I believe comes second to that faith. And their love matches up to their faith.

Communion of Saints

I really believe in the communion of saints. We think nothing of going to our friends or loves ones when we are in trouble and ask them to pray for us, but for some reason many people seem to think it is impossible to hope for people who are now in heaven to pray on our behalf. People who lived faithfully to God during their stay on earth until the end and are now safely a resident of heaven, these people I believe are now in a far greater position to pray and help us. With even greater results than all the friends and love ones here with us on earth, who have still yet to prove they will remain faithful to the end.

People in heaven would have even a greater need to help us, because they can see the whole picture through the eyes of Christ, far better than any of us here on earth. Protestants have no problems believing in angels helping them, but are not able to believe in their loves one or people who have lived outstanding lives such as Mary the Mother of Jesus can help them. They even think it is wrong for us to ask them. They confuse praying to Mary as worshiping Mary which is not the case at all. Praying is just another word for communicating as in asking or interceding.

One of Marys great cry to the Fatima children was ‘why do people keep me so idle.’ In other words she has been given by God so much power through her gift of intercession , but she cannot use it until we ask her to use it on our behalf. God cannot help us either if we do not ask Him for help. This is one of God’s rules.

Mary Is Our Spiritual Mother

All that belongs to Jesus belongs also to us. This includes His own Mother. Jesus is our brother and therefore Mary is also our Mother, is the way I see it. Matter of fact it would be a lie for me to say I think Mary is my Mother, because I know she is. Like so many people throughout the world I have called on her for help and she has never failed me. In life and death situations I have called on her to pray for me and she has always got me through.

I have been very blessed. My first visitation of God was when I was eight years old. I was a Protestant at that time. On my mother side they were all Catholics and were religious. My father was Protestant and his side of the family were not religious. I remember talking to my Grandmother on my mother’s side saying ‘I do not see the point in asking saints to pray for me, I rather go to the top.’ Meaning God. My grandmother agreed. So in my family there was no talk about the importance of the communion of saints, because we all prayed to the top.

When I became a the Catholic I was twenty three years old. Not long after my conversion to the Catholic faith, I went into a Catholic book shop and I asked God like I mostly do, to help me find a book that He wanted me to read. There was a table full of books on Mary’s life, and I knew that was where God wanted me to go and I did not want to. I did not want to buy a book on Mary and there was a fight on. I eventually gave into God very reluctantly and said to Him ‘now I am going to find a book I want to read.’

God Wanted Me To Learn About Mary

Now nearly forty years later ‘what book do you think stays in my mind? The book I chose for myself or the book God wanted me to read? I know you know the answer to that one already. The book God chose for me changed my life. The book God chose me to read was written by a saint who had the gift of seeing into the past and she wrote a book on Mary’s life. By the time I finished that book I was not at all surprise why she was so honoured in the Catholic Church. My relationship with her still would not of been as close as God would want it, but it started. Since that day I started to have visitations of Mary as well as Christ.

Mary always brings you to her Son Jesus, she never expects us to worship her. If we did started to worship her we would immediately get into trouble with her. She has clearly come to me as my mother many times and she has also other roles too and I know she loves me so powerfully. Like all mothers she has only to give you that look and you know that you have done wrong, you know exactly what you should do, because when she gives you that look, you do feel the fear the Lord your God, in your heart and you do kneel before God in repentance. Because Mary does protect her children when they are going the wrong way and leads them straight back to God. And she has protected me from countless of demon attacks for over twenty years. She has never failed me once. I believe I have a responsibility to share this with you. I know many will not like it, but it is very important to God that I do.

Welcome

Bethany Christian Living

God Loves You

1 Corinthians 1: 10-12

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there is no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: one of you says, “I follow Paul.” Another, “I follow Apollos:” another, “I follow Cephas.” Still another “I follow Christ.”

I feel God wants me and others too, to address this very subject. I do not know a lot about warfare, but I have been told the whole idea is divide, then conquer. I am sure you can see as well as I can Satan has successfully divided the Church of God many times over

Read more about why this blog was created in the About Us page

  1. Most Protestants wrongly presume they know what Catholics believe in.
  2. The main reason why the blog became into being, is so that both Protestants and Catholic have a better understanding of one another and realise even though there are some differences we are actually on the same side, we both follow and love Jesus who is our Saviour.
  3. I have notice one of the major differences between Protestants and Catholics is Protestants tend to concentrate more on Reaping and Catholics tend to concentrate more on sowing. Naturally they are different callings, requiring different skills.
  4. This blog is not just for the Protestants and Catholics to enjoy and learn from each other but all Christian Churches are welcome to join in and share their beliefs too.

I believe we are in the last days and if there is any chance of the Church being reunited it is now!

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