Trust Christ [Jn 10]

I want to reassure you all. For this is universal.

1. If you are of Christ, then you are assured of Christ. This because he will not let you go. It is not your faithfulness, for you are faithless, as am I. It is his faithfulness, which extended beyond death to the defeat of death.
2. If you are not of Christ, you are assured of a convergence. Into a second death.

There is a division, a knife, that penetrates at the joints of society. Those who have been called by the Spirit and can hear the words of Christ and believe in what he says have life eternal.

There is no if.

It is a promise from Christ: who clearly taught he was God incarnate.

At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

(John 10:22-30 ESV)

The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him. And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.

(Acts 13:44-46 ESV)

We are here to glorify God. Not to meet the agenda of this world, or to appease those who teach a different gospel. or have something strange. We are not to be deceived by them. For they will oppose us, they will cast us out, and they will invent new sins so that we can be damned.

Pope Francis today proposed that caring for the environment be added to the traditional seven works of mercy that Christians are called to perform.

The Pope took his green agenda to a new level by supplementing Jesus’ call to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the sick with his own call for recycling, carpooling and conserving electricity.

He said the faithful should ask forgiveness for the ‘sins’ against the environment that have been committed by the ‘irresponsible, selfish’ and profit-motivated economic and political system.

You have the spirit. You have common sense. You have the gospels. And when someone adds something new to the completed work of Christ, he is a heretic. Regardless of what hat he (or she) is hearing.

For men are faithless. Popes included.

Put your trust instead in Christ.