Who in their right mind, able bodied and all would choose death over life? Yet this unconscionable act is chosen over and over again each time we choose sin over life. Yes indeed sin equals death.
Jesus our Lord is the source of all life and so by choosing to sin we distant ourselves further and further from Him by our disobedience. And while it may seem that we are living our lives to the full, passionately fulfilling our base desires; we are in actual fact withering, falling and sooner than later we will die.
To live in the love of Jesus is truly choosing life to the full. By embracing the challenges, hardships and sacrifices we opt to carry the gift of the cross. For by dying in Him, we rise to new life with and in Him.
Lord Jesus Bless and anoint me, that I may faithfully choose to serve You above all else. Now and forever. Amen
First reading
Deuteronomy 30:15-20 ·
I set before you today life or death, blessing or curse
Moses said to the people: ‘See, today I set before you life and prosperity, death and disaster. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin on you today, if you love the Lord your God and follow his ways, if you keep his commandments, his laws, his customs, you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to make your own. But if your heart strays, if you refuse to listen, if you let yourself be drawn into worshipping other gods and serving them, I tell you today, you will most certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today: I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live, in the love of the Lord your God, obeying his voice, clinging to him; for in this your life consists, and on this depends your long stay in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he would give them.’
Gospel
Luke 9:22-25
Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it
Jesus said to his disciples:
‘The Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death, and to be raised up on the third day.’
Then to all he said:
‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it. What gain, then, is it for a man to have won the whole world and to have lost or ruined his very self?’
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