{"id":7350,"date":"2021-11-27T09:45:40","date_gmt":"2021-11-26T23:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=7350"},"modified":"2021-11-27T09:45:42","modified_gmt":"2021-11-26T23:45:42","slug":"a-firm-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/a-firm-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"A Firm Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

A Firm Faith<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Jonathan Ishak<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Luke 7:36-50<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the sinner woman looked upon Jesus, she saw Him with\nclarity. She saw God, while others saw another guest in a home. She was the only\none that saw Him among the entire household of supposedly righteous people. Even\nSimon the Pharisee saw Him as a prophet alone. He questioned if He could even\nbe a prophet if He allowed her to touch His feet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord concludes this interaction, \u201cYour faith has saved you. Go in peace<\/em>\u201d (Luke 7:50). She recognised and saw Him in the right way. No young lady would untie her hair and use it to clean anything, let alone someone else’s feet. A young lady\u2019s hair is one of her most beautiful attributes, but when she look upon Christ and saw God, she sacrificed even this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we look to Christ, do we see God? Do we act upon our\nfaith in the right way? Is our faith similar to that of the sinner woman? We may\nhave reasons to have more faith than her, but she proved herself faithful above\nmost. Maybe even the disciples that witnessed this interaction questioned if Christ\nwas God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This lady saw Christ as God, and left with more than she was\nlooking for, for all her sins were forgiven on that day. How beautiful her\nfaith was on that day. Do we have faith like this? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just the other day, a man was called into his boss\u2019 office. As he entered, he was expecting big problems. He was tired after a long day\u2019s work and was not prepared for what he walked in to. His boss was furious and accused him of wrongdoing. The man sat in front of the boss while he was yelling. Not knowing what else to do, he was praying and asking for the intercessions of St Mary and St George. The boss began to notice that he was not concentrating and so he said, \u201cWhy aren\u2019t you listening to me? I am trying to tell you about the problems that happened last Sunday!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man stopped him at this and said, \u201cbut I don\u2019t work\nSundays and I haven\u2019t worked on a Sunday for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The boss, realising his mistake, became extremely apologetic and when he saw he looked into this man\u2019s record, he saw someone that was efficient and competent at their work. We keep in mind that there is always a Boss higher than will save us from the troubles of the world. Do we turn to God in our problems? Or do we turn to our own logic or the help of other people? We cry out to the Lord is our needs to save us from all tribulation, and He will save us in ways we never thought possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another story happened in the life of Fr Mikhail Ebrahim who was the confession father of many, including Pope Shenouda III. After his departure, Pope Shenouda wrote about Fr Mikhail that he believed in the words of the Bible as his source of knowledge and comfort. Before he was a priest, he would follow the words of the Bible without question. He was working for the government before priesthood. On one occasion, he gave his suit to be dry cleaned and came to pick it up and the man said it was stolen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fr Mikhail asked him, \u201cbut did you iron it before it was stolen?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man said, \u201cWhat difference does it make?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you ironed the suit then I must pay you for your work, as it says, \u201cRender therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.<\/em>\u201d (Romans 13:7). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we see God and the Bible in this same way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many years ago, a certain doctor\u2019s father was undergoing an operation.\nHe asked for the keys of the church so he could spend this time in prayer.\nWhile his whole family was at the hospital, he wanted to pray. A doctor could\neasily speak to the doctors and nurses of the hospital to find out what is\nhappening during surgery. He chose the higher path, to trust in God that guides\nthe hands of the doctor. Instead of using all the knowledge he knows, he left\nthis behind and trusted in God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can we attain this faith? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can attach ourselves to the Lord. Do not allow the 24\nhours of the day to pass without giving the Lord a fair portion of these hours.\nOne hour at the end of day at the very least. Allow yourself to have a retreat\nwith the Lord on a daily basis. How did the sinner woman know the Lord? Maybe\nshe didn\u2019t say anything, but it is likely that she followed Him, she saw His\nmiracles, she attached herself to Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Request renewed strength of faith from the Lord. In the liturgy we pray, \u201cgive us Your peace till the end.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need a repentance heart. Make a U-turn every time you see yourself heading toward sin. Immediately return when you see yourself heading down the wrong path. Don\u2019t allow yourself to go down the path of sin, but turn around, at any point, know that your repentance is still acceptable to our Lord. Glory be to our Lord forever, Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Firm Faith Adapted from a sermon by Fr Jonathan Ishak Luke 7:36-50 When the sinner woman looked upon Jesus, she saw Him with clarity. She saw God, while others saw another guest in a home. She was the only one that saw Him among the entire household of supposedly righteous people. Even Simon the … Continue reading “A Firm Faith”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7351,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7352,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7350\/revisions\/7352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}