“YOU MUST BE PERFECT AS YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER IS PERFECT.”
(Mt.5:48). This is the challenge of our
Lord Jesus Christ when He spoke to the multitudes in His Sermon on the Mount –
The Beatitudes.
For quite a time I have been asking
myself: “How can I be perfect as God Himself? “
It seems it is an impossibility.
To my mind, a man, like myself, cannot
become like God. However, in my
reflections on the Meditations of the ANAWIM WAY Booklet it dawned on me that
the challenge to be perfect is synonymous to the challenge to forgive. Jesus Christ gave that challenge after saying
that one should love everyone, even our enemies. And the first step to love our enemies is to
forgive them.
The ANAWIM WAY says that
“Forgiveness is an Act of the Will”. It
is a decision that has to be made. Hence, even if we feel unable to forgive, we
can still decide to forgive and beg the Lord for the grace to be able to
forgive.
God is Love. His love is perfect, because He loves
everyone unconditionally, even those who sin against Him. He offers to everyone the grace of repentance
to enable one to respond to His love by using the gift of freedom. Hence,
to be perfect like God means to love everyone unconditionally, even those who
hurt us.
To love is an Act of the Will. It is a decision, regardless of how we
feel. This is the challenge. Most often we act according to how we
feel. It takes a lot of courage to
disregard our feelings and make decisions according to what we believe is in
accordance with God’s Will. This is
where the power of prayer comes in, because when we pray we open ourselves to
the Will of God, so that His Kingdom
will come and He may reign in us.
The challenge to be perfect,
therefore, can be achieved through the power of prayer. When one humbly prays and begs God for all
the graces he needs in order to become like His Son, Jesus Christ, I do believe that his prayer shall be
granted.
By: Buddy Cagurangan
