DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Friday, April 20, 2018

What does it take to enter the Realm of Heaven?

So then, by their fruit you will recognize them. Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. – Matthew 7:20,21

Revivalists like to say it is oh so easy. “Simply come to the altar and ask Him to save you.” It is good for business, this bit of salesmanship but it is a falsehood of insufficiency, a truth not fully stated. Pleading, “Lord, save me”, is but the first step that leads into the Heavenly Realm.

Rather I believe Christ Himself is emphatically clear … it is in the doing of God’s Will, the doing of God’s Wishes and Ways, that leads one into the Heavenly Realm. No, not in the sense of keeping the adhering to some celestial rulebook, but in making the journey to a promised land where one learns to live according to the ideals of a humanity, divinely graced.

In the doing of the wishes and ways of the Lord, we learn as a result of the experience of living out those wishes and ways. And with such experience, we learn the greater, deeper, finer aspects of God’s Will. And, then, we learn and mature even more.

But not only do we mature as we make this faithful journey toward the distant hills of the Realm, we each step we take, the Lord uses our faithfulness to bring to life the Wishes and Ways of the Realm in this earthly realm. This is the fulfillment of what began in the birth of Christ and His resurrection, the bringing together of Heaven and earth into one.

What does it take to enter the Realm of Heaven? Faith that gives birth to Faithfulness.

Always in His Service,
Fr. Charitas de la Cruz