Into the realm of unknown joy we shall all find one day

Into the realm of unknown joy we shall all find one day

If there is anything a finite mind can look forward to it is the final point of the words “Come, you who are blessed by my Father.  Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  (Mt 25: 34).  These are the attributes of our willingness to reach out to the poor and see to their needs.

I once wrote about Matthew and the two bookends of his Gospel that portray the reality of the gospel’s essence for us poor men that we are.  The Beatitudes and The Judgment of the Nations.  

The Beatitudes place us in a position of power we might never have given thought to.  These words come through authority not only for leaders but to the very followers of God’s chosen children.  We see that those who are poor in the Beatitudes and those who depended on us who have possessions beyond our own need are God’s most essential since our own needs to be forgiven places us among the poor.  The spirit of mercy has become a cry heard around the world when there is no other substance that will save our souls from eternal death.  

Reading into the final judgment saved for the selfish and uncaring people who walk away from the poor we see that theirs has earned a punishment reserved for those who have forgotten God’s gifts given freely, now taken back because of selfishness.

Perhaps there is no other scripture that portrays God’s direct promise of caring for his people, especially the poor, than found here.  We can intend to bargain with God when the time to be judged arrives, but count on it here there is no delay of a trial or many defense lawyers allowed to be present.  We had the chance to live according to God’s law of love, but many will find this too has succumbed to time not spent with God’s will.

What then are we to do?  There is a joy we have heard about, but even the citizens of Noah’s time knew about God in some fashion and still went their own way.  As then and now an unseen entity as our Creator is man has a stubborn attitude using his free will to go his own way.  People sometimes proclaim that if God is omnipresent seeing all the many problems man encounters, why wouldn’t he step in and save his creatures?  

That same question is echoed today and the answer will remain the same.  Free will was given to humanity so he would seek to find God on his own, and not be led as a puppet.  A puppeteer can control his creation by pulling the strings of motion and direction.  At the end of the day the puppets lay down and wait for the next manner its creator wishes to make them obey.  What kind of human would they be if only the desire of God was controlling their minds as well as their hearts?  God’s desire is that we come to him of our own free will and a heart that can speak openly through an ability of love.  This love is the same as a man and woman giving themselves to honesty and sacrifice to a common existence that knows no control of the other.  That is true love and why God gave us a blueprint to share with us a love that is not one-sided, but unique for each other in oneness.  

“They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.  Consecrate them in the truth.  Your word is truth.  As you sent me into the world so I sent them into the world.  And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.  I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you Father, are in me and I in you, that the ymay also be in us that the world may believe that you sent me.”  (Jn 17: 16 - 21).  A pronouncement of Truth that will carry on into eternity and it will be their free will that accomplishes this.

Herein, this is the unknown joy that becomes a knowledge of God’s love and our total freedom to be one with God as he is already one with each of us.

Ralph B. Hathaway