Anyone Who Loves His Life Loses It; Anyone Who Hates His Life in This World will Keep it for the Eternal Life...

 

Gospel for This Sunday

JOHN 12:20-33

Among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. These approached Philip, who came from Bethsaida in Galilee, and put this request to him, ‘Sir, we should like to see Jesus.’ Philip went to tell Andrew, and Andrew and Philip together went to tell Jesus. Jesus replied to them:
‘Now the hour has come
for the Son of Man to be glorified.
I tell you, most solemnly,
unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies,
it remains only a single grain;
but if it dies,
it yields a rich harvest.
Anyone who loves his life loses it;
anyone who hates his life in this world
will keep it for the eternal life.
If a man serves me, he must follow me,
wherever I am, my servant will be there too.
If anyone serves me, my Father will honor him.
Now my soul is troubled.
What shall I say:
Father, save me from this hour?
But it was for this very reason that I have come to this hour.
Father, glorify your name!’
A voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ People standing by, who heard this, said it was a clap of thunder; others said, ‘It was an angel speaking to him.’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not for my sake that this voice came, but for yours.
‘Now sentence is being passed on this world;
now the prince of this world is to be overthrown.
And when I am lifted up from the earth,
I shall draw all men to myself.’
By these words he indicated the kind of death he would die.

I loved the Gospel reading for this week at church. It has a good reminder for all of us. We are not of this world and we need to remember there is an eternal life we are going to when we leave here. We need to put all our trust in God and walk with Him and do what he wants us to do on this "Earth School" we are on, it is not that we need to love it here at all like the reading says. If you are a person of God, His child, and feels His glory in your life, you also feel the problems and troubles of this world here on Earth and how people can make it unbearable often with ego, greed, selfishness, corruption, pretentiousness, fraud, apathy, and mediocrity. We do not have to be part of all of that. We can turn all of this part over to God. Life on this earth is a challenge for sure, it is not easy and sometimes you can feel you do not like it at all, especially when you are exposed to some of the aforementioned problems with living in this world.  While it is not easy, do your best to honor God and serve Him the best you can and you will be honoring God, make the best of this world, but know and don't become consumed by the illusions of this world, its materialism, greed, selfishness, and mediocrity, it all is an illusion and we need to know where our really home and goal is, with the Lord in Heaven living in Eternity with God forever at peace in a much better place, so much better than this world we live in now. In Heaven, eternity with God!  That is the blessing and miracle God offers all of us, recall this when you hate this world, there is a better place, put your trust in God and follow Him!