Be Transfigured Ministries

Ready and Willing for God

Every Christian is called by God at any moment to be ready and willing to follow Him, and to go where He calls. God expects us to be both physically and spiritually ready to accept the calling of God. In the Gospel of Luke (Luke 5.1-11), as we hear Christ calling a few simple fishermen to become His disciples, we are reminded that when we live our life reading the Holy Scriptures and waiting for Christ, when He calls us, we will be ready and willing to following Him, and God will use our willingness to bring others to Christ. The disciples were not perfect. They were not well educated. They were not always even successful, but they lived their lives ready and willing, and God blessed them.

Bible Study on 1st Corinthians Session 1

A Bible Study on St Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, inspired by the Homilies of St John Chrysostom. This session was originally livestream Tuesday, September 22, 2020, in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

Get Over Ourselves

When Christ invites us into heaven He says, “Whoever desires to follow Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow Me.” This invitation can only be accepted when we are willing to deny ourselves, or as we would say in our contemporary language, we must get over ourselves. Our American way of life teaches us the lie that we can do, have, and be whatever we want. In truth, we cannot have anything just because we desire it. We will never take up our cross, and therefore never enter heaven until we get over ourselves. It is the life of the Cross.

The Beginning of Love

Arguably the most popular scripture passage quoted at a sporting event reminds us of God’s love. John 3.16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life,” isn’t just a teaching about how much God loves us, but how much He wants us to love others. Even though we do not live up to the standards God has established for, and though we are not worthy of His love, STILL God endured the Cross so that we could live. Today God is calling us to love others in the same way He loves us. He is calling us to love with true sacrifice for others, whether they love us in return, but this is the love of God. When God loves, there is life.

Good News, Bad News and Really Good News

For those of us Gentiles in the Church, we are reminded that we were brought into the Church by Christ because the Jews were disobedient to God. That’s good news for us. However, Saint Paul reminds us that we are strangers, adopted into the Church, and if God removed the Jews who were native to the Church, He will not hesitate to remove us if we are disobedient and selfish with the Church. Then there is the really good news! There is still time for us. We are still able to change and live obedient lives, producing fruit for God. When produce the fruit of the Spirit, “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control,” (Galatians 5.22-23) God will grow the Church into a beacon of hope and light.

Live and Love as God wants

 

The Commandments of God, whether they are in the Old Testament, the New Testament, or the Holy Canons of the Church, are meant for one singular purpose. We do not obey the laws of the Church just for the sake of being obedient, but to train our hearts to learn to live and to love as God wants us to live and to love. God invites us to leave everything else aside to follow Him and to love others more than we love ourselves. Keeping the Commandments of God, if we are willing, will shape us.

Forgive and FORGET!

We all the know the pain of being hurt by the words and actions of others. Too often I hear “I forgive but I don’t forget.” When we refuse to forget what others have said or done to us, we truly haven’t forgiven them, but we are holding on for some future moment when we can hold it over their head. Christ has warned us, it is only when we forgive AND FORGET, just as He has done for us, can we be forgiven by God and welcomed into paradise.

Faith During a Pandemic

When confronted with illness, most especially when healing does not come, we are tempted to challenge God, “Why!?” The same was true for the Disciple who were unable to heal a boy who had a demon. Christ’s response to them, and to us, “Because of your unbelief.” We must take the seed of faith planted by our parents at our baptism and nourish and cultivate the seed to become a great tree of faith strong enough to move mountains. The seed of faith requires prayer and fasting and the sacramental life of the Church. We need to stop asking why, and start praying and fasting and give the seed of faith some attention. We can no longer let the seed of faith to be ignored in our life.

The Power of God’s Peace

When we are faced with the storms of life, it can be very tempting to focus on the storm rather than Christ. It is very easy to become crippled with fear when we take our eyes off Christ. God is present in the Church and He promises that when we need Him, we will find Him in the Church. When we turn our attention to God, and when we leave the cares of life outside the doors of the Church, we will be comforted and protected by God.

God Wants Co-Workers

God Wants Co-Workers

God has given to each person, whether a believer or not, certain gifts and talents to assist others. When we are faced with the needs of others, sometimes our temptation is to excuse them away to others maybe because we fear we don’t have enough resources, or maybe we think we don’t have time. In either case, it is only when we allow God to bless others through our cooperation, through our efforts, that God’s mercy and blessing is experienced by others. When we accept our role as coworkers with God, not only will there be enough time and resources, in fact there will be an excess of leftovers.