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He came to be with us, are you with Him?

December,22 2014

Dearly beloved in Christ
We are about to receive the Miraculous Birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which bestowing upon us grace of the heavenly gifts, and above all the vision of New Life.

The joyous Feast of the Nativity instills in our hearts the vision of spiritual renewal. The celebration of the Birth of Christ, our Lord, becomes truly significant when we make the commitment to live, walk with Christ and dedicate our lives to the church, the house of the Lord.

He came to be with us, are you with Him?

Yes, we are about to receive the incarnated God after few days, so how we have to receive Him.

Eliminate everything unnecessary in our life in order to put first things, first.
St. John the Apostle in his first epistle says: Little children, keep yourselves from idols (false gods)5:21--[from anything and everything that would occupy the place in your heart due to God, from any sort of substitute for Him that would take first place in your life].

It is imperative that we prevent any sort of substitute from becoming first place in our life. Let us fill our life with the true, living God, not a phony earthly substitute.
You can tell what is important to you, simply by examining how you spend your time. If you are spending so much time trying to make money that you don't spend any quality time with God, then wealth is more important to you than God. Likewise, if you are always spending time with friends and don't have any time to spend with God, then your social life is more important to you than God.

How you use your time, is so important, because you can either invest it or waste it. However, if you waste your time, you'll never get it back. On the other hand, if you invest your time into forming a deep, close, personal relationship with God, then you will reap the rewards of such an investment for the rest of eternity.

Decide to put God first in your life: spend significant, quality, personal time with Him. Put the first, most important thing (God) first place in your life.

Are you so busy working for God that you never spend any time with God?
It is easy to justify doing good works for God as a substitute for spending real, intimate, quality, personal time with God. For example, maybe you serve in the church organizations, in charities, spending many hours planning events for Sunday school kids, and so on. However, none of that is a substitute for spending personal time with God—reading the Bible, praying, seeking God's guidance, worshiping, and just sitting in His presence at His house, the church.

Unfortunately, many people are often so involved in other activities that they use them as an excuse for not spending time with God. Instead, they need to make a firm decision to put God first in their lives.

For example, King David, who certainly had many opportunities to fill his time with other activities, knew that spending time with God is an absolute necessity—a vital need. In Psalm 27:4, he said that God was the most important thing in his life: One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.

Indeed, Jesus declared that if we seek God, he will take care of the rest of the things in our lives: "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:33). In your life, put God first, and he will take care of "all these things." Follow David's example: make God the "one thing" you need. That way, you won't be so busy working for God that you never spend any time with God.

Beloved faithful,
This year 2015 becomes a milestone in the history of our church and nation. The due homage to the memory of the martyrs of the first Genocide of the 20th century and first Genocide of the 21st century need to be justified through our sacrificial life guarding our identity firm and story.

Together we pave the way to a luminous future by entrusting the undying legacy of our fallen ancestors to the young generation.
Let this spiritual message become a reflection in our soul and guide us with divine grace of the Holy Spirit.

"Christ is Born and Revealed!"
"Blessed is the Revelation of Christ!"

 

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The Western Archdiocese of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch, providing spiritual guidance and leadership to the Syriac Orthodox community, is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit, tax-exempt organization comprised of 18 churches and parishes in 17 western states. It was established in 1952 as the Archdiocese of the Syrian Orthodox Church encompassing the entire United States and Canada. In November 1995 by the Holy Synod, the Western Archdiocese was formed to exclusively serve the 17 states of the western half United States.


417 E. Fairmount Rd., Burbank, CA 91501
Tel: (818) 845-5089 Fax: (818) 953-7203
E-mail: bishopric@soc-wus.org

 

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