Day 5 Sunday 1st Week of Lent, the purpose of the liturgical season of Lent is to grow in closeness to the Lord through truth, repentance, and the word of God moving into fullness within your heart. Truth of theSpirit with Patti Brunner presents Daily Meditations for Lent. Lenten Logos includes personal revelation for your discernment to grow in your relationship with the Lord during this liturgical season of Lent.
Audio and video:
Welcome to Truth of the Spirit. I am your host, Patti Brunner. This is day 5 of our series “Daily Meditations for Lent – Lenten Logos, it’s the Sunday of first week of Lent. Each day during Lent we will share personal revelation and meditation from those logos, those words from the Lord.
One time as I prayerfully asked the Lord to help me as I prepared to speak at a retreat of teenagers. I asked, “What do you want them to know that I can tell them?” The Lord’s response is a good message for all of us. “My child, the truth will set them free. They have not heard truth even though it has been taught to them. Seek to open their hearts to know how much I love them. Jesus overcome the fear of suffering and death. Jesus overcome the fear of ridicule and rejection. He stepped out of the acceptable norm to do what was just and what pleased the Father. He did not judge others but always treated even the ‘public’ sinners with love and compassion. True, He did speak bluntly to those who closed their hearts and minds to the truth, but even this bluntness did not sharpen the senses of those whose hearts were set against him.
“Jesus overcame to heal, to drive out demons, and to manifest God’s glory. He demonstrated God’s kingdom on earth and taught you to pray each day for the kingdom to be manifested on earth as it is in heaven.
“This day was made by the Lord, rejoice in it and be glad, for today the Lord is placing truth in the hearts of the youth. And truth will set them free.
“Ask the Holy Spirit of stir into flame the grace that was bestowed upon them at Baptism and Confirmation. The glory of the Lord shall be upon them and they shall be changed. Desire the Lord, for today He shall be yours. Desire the Lord, above all things with your whole heart, your whole mind, your whole soul and all this shall be given unto you. The power of the Most high created the world, the stars, the universe and grasshoppers and you—the Lord God can create for you a clean heart—turn to Him and you shall know his power, his glory, his grace. Turn to Him and you shall become harvesters for the Kingdom of God. Lives will be touched and generations shall be saved. It is the Will of the Lord. It is to you whom the Lord speaks his great commission. Accept it and be blessed. Accept it and bring the joy of the Lord into the hearts of the captives and they shall also be free. Joy is great to win battles; it is a tool of the Lord to destroy the plots of the enemy. The enemy seeks to destroy your joy. He will not.
“The joy of the Lord is my comfort. The joy of the Lord is my rod. The joy of the Lord is mine to give. The joy of the Lord allows me to live. Seek ye first the kingdom of God.”
Early the next morning the Lord gave me this inspiration to use for the upperclassman life teen retreat. I saw myself giving the retreat talk. I then got up and wrote down on the computer all I could remember and the Lord gave me more. In the vision I shared these words the Lord gave me, these words.
“Are any of you wondering, “How did I get here this week-end?” You are not here by accident. God supplied an overwhelming amount of grace for you to be here. He called your families to move to NWA [to this place] so that you could be here today. You are a part of God’s plan for salvation.
“God is calling you this week-end to make a decision: A decision for life not death. He gave you freewill. It is your decision. The choices you make today can change your life; they can change the lives of your friends, your entire generation. Are you going to run from God because what He offers you today looks different? Has the devil, ole furnace boy, been preparing you this weekend with lies? Has he been telling you that God is nothing? It’s not true! God is everything. Did Satan tell you that you are nothing? That’s a lie! You are God’s unique creation and a part of his plan for salvation. Did Satan tell you that what you choose “doesn’t hurt” anyone? I bet he told Adam & Eve the same thing. And look where their decision got us. Satan can see that your generation is to be favored by God. That you, young people in this room, have been called by God to something so awesome that Satan is running scared. He has been working for 30 years to destroy you. 40 million of you were destroyed by abortion. Countless others have been destroyed by choosing drugs, alcohol and suicide. The little demon is seeking to destroy your family by divorce and pornography, and promiscuity. Satan is afraid of you and he’s trying to destroy you, just like he tried to destroy Christ. But he didn’t understand the scripture “If God is for you who can be against?” Satan is nothing but an irritating fly to swat away. The next time he pesters you with his lies, just shoo him away. Say, “In the name of Jesus I command you to leave now.” And he has to leave! He is nothing. Scripture tells us he tries only to “steal, kill, and destroy.” But God sent Jesus to give us life, “a more abundant life”, a life that will be for all eternity more than you could every dream, imagine or hope for.
You can spend your life chasing pleasure for today or you can choose to spend your life working so that lots of people and you can have an everlasting joy, to be happier than you can imagine, for all of eternity. You can spend a week-end getting high, or you can spend an eternity with the Most High—there’s no high like the most high! You can chase riches and power or you can chase the Lord you can seek the Lord and all these things will be given you. You can spend your life in fear: fear of dying, fear of rejection, fear of failure; or you can spend your life fearing only God, caring only how He might judge your actions. You can spend your life afraid of the fullness of spirituality that God is calling you to today or you can taste the goodness of the Lord. You can run from him denying that call, denying God—or you can take a deep breath and try it. Your life will never be the same. Mine is not. Don’t just trust my word for it. Try the banquet of God for yourselves. Surrender your life to the Lord. Open your heart to Him. The more you give of yourself to God, the stronger you become in his power and grace. It is by giving that you receive. When you surrender your life to Christ, when you lay it down before Him, that’s when heaven and earth are one…
“God doesn’t call the equipped. He equips the called. “Be not afraid”.
Please click like, subscribe and join us each day for Daily Meditations for Lent – Lenten Logos with Patti Brunner. “The event of the Cross and Resurrection abides and draws everything toward life.”[i] “Prepare for it, ready your heart.” The transcript of this episode is available at PatriarchMinistries.com. Come back tomorrow for more. With the Holy Spirit there’s always more. Amen
[i] Catechism of the Catholic Church Paragraph 1085
