Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Glorifying God with our Lives

"Give glory and eternal praise to [God],"  who created you, breathes His breath into you, guards you as God walks ahead of you preparing the way, as God walks behind you to catch you when you fall, as God walks beside you as a companion on the way to eternal life!  In today's first reading, Daniel 5: 12-6, 13-14, 16-17, 23-28, we read that the son of Nebuchadnezzar, King Belshazzar, defied God, desecrating the sacred vessels from "the house of God in Jerusalem", using them to drink wine with his lords, his wives, and his entertainers. Not only that, but also he and his companions also worshipped "the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone that neither see nor hear or have intelligence.  But the God in whose hands," Daniel tells him, "is your life breath and the whole course of your life, you did not glorify." The writing that suddenly appeared on the wall of the palace where the king entertained his lords, wives, and entertainers, terrified the king: "his face blanched; his thoughts terrified him, his hips shook, and his knees knocked." 

Daniel did not mince words about what the writings meant. His interpretation:  This writing that was inscribed: Mene, Tekel, and Peres. These words mean: Mene, God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it; Tekel, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; Peres, your kingdom  has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians."

We need to, I believe, pray for the grace to realize that God is our Lord and Master in life and in death, that we are here on earth to glorify the Lord and discover His sovereignty, His holiness, His unconditional love and mercy!  And, in turn, we are to be vessels of divine grace for others, obedient unto death as was the Son of Man, Jesus! Nothing else matters!  "Remain faithful until death, and [God] will I've you the crown of life," we read in Rev. 2 10c.

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