LOVE IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH
“When He comes, however, being the Spirit of truth He will guide you to all truth.” —John 16:13
Life in Christ is a life of love, for Jesus is Love (see 1 Jn 4:8, 16). Love requires freedom. We cannot force people to love us. Freedom requires knowledge. Without some knowledge, we cannot freely decide to love. Therefore, knowledge of the truth is very important because truth is an absolute prerequisite for love. The Lord “wants all men to be saved and come to know the truth” (1 Tm 2:4).

The fruit of the Holy Spirit is love (Gal 5:22) because the Spirit gives us freedom, which requires the Spirit to guide us to all truth (Jn 16:13). The Holy Spirit will open us to all the truth we need for the freedom to love the Lord with all our hearts, to love our neighbors as ourselves, to love even our enemies, and to actually live in love (see Jn 15:9). The Holy Spirit, by being the Spirit of truth (Jn 16:13), produces the fruit of love in our lives.

The Lord says: “My people perish for want of knowledge!” (Hos 4:6) It is not that we are saved by knowledge but that knowledge of the truth makes it possible to have faith in and love for the Lord. This is what saves us. Consequently, we need the Holy Spirit of truth and love to be as active as possible in our lives. Come, Holy Spirit!

PRAYER: Father, show me the relationship between truth, freedom, and love.
PROMISE: “He has set the day on which He is going to ‘judge the world with justice’ through a Man He has appointed — One Whom He has endorsed in the sight of all by raising Him from the dead.” –Acts 17:31
PRAISE: An orphan, St. Bernardine was raised by a godly aunt. He became a Franciscan and was ordained a priest. He preached the loving mercy of God. Bernardine devised a symbol, IHS, the first three letters of Jesus name in Greek, in Gothic letters, on a blazing sun, to promote devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus.

GOD IN THE WORKPLACE

“The jailer was given instructions to guard them well. Upon receipt of these instructions, he put them in maximum security, going so far as to chain their feet to a stake.” —Acts 16:23-24

The jailer of Paul and Silas did his job to the best of his ability. He may have even gone above and beyond in his job performance, “going so far as to chain [the feet of Paul and Silas] to a stake.” That was probably unnecessary when they were already in maximum security. However, the jailer planned to do his job well.

An earthquake shook the jailer’s prison compound, and “all the doors flew open and everyone’s chains were pulled loose” (Acts 16:26). This was the absolute worst disaster the jailer could have ever imagined. A Roman jailer paid for escaped prisoners with his own life. The jailer knew he was going to die at the hands of his bosses, so “he drew his sword to kill himself” (Acts 16:27).

That’s when the jailer met God in the workplace. His most notorious prisoners pleaded with him to spare his life. They also prevented all the other prisoners from escaping. He knew this was impossible! Only God could have transformed his worst nightmare into his greatest day on the job. The jailer was convicted at the depth of his heart and humbly begged for salvation (Acts 16:30ff).

The jailer was an expert at his job. Yet God showed him His omnipotence and mercy in the midst of his area of expertise, and the jailer recognized in an instant the God of the impossible. May we likewise recognize God moving in our workplace, receive His mercy, and spread His saving love to our coworkers.

PRAYER:               “In my work, Lord, be glorified…”

PROMISE:            “The Lord will complete what He has done for me.” –Ps 138:8

PRAISE:                 Open your bible today, what is the Lord telling you…

HOME IMPROVEMENT
‘ ” —Acts 16:15
After her conversion, the first words of Lydia, the first convert of the Western world, involved making her home a base for evangelisation. Jesus stayed at home for about thirty years before His three years of public ministry. The Church met primarily in homes for its first three hundred years. The Church fathers taught that the Christian home is a “domestic church” (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1656, 1666). The Lord has clearly and repeatedly made the statement that the home is foundational and central to Christianity.

Consequently, Satan tries to destroy our homes through abortion, contraception, promiscuity, unfaithfulness, and divorce. He attacks the home through TV, the Internet, and other forms of media. Satan makes it seem economically necessary to work away from home for most of our waking hours. He has been largely successful in getting meals, education, recreation, medical care, and business taken out of the home. The home is then relegated to a boarding house where residents merely sleep and entertain themselves.

By the power of the risen Christ and with wisdom from the Holy Spirit, let us restore our homes to their crucial place in God’s plan of salvation. Risen Lord Jesus, in these last days of Easter, raise our homes from the ruins of our culture of death.

PRAYER: Father, protect me from being brainwashed.
PROMISE: “When the Paraclete comes, the Spirit of truth Who comes from the Father — and Whom I Myself will send from the Father — He will bear witness on My behalf. You must bear witness as well.” –Jn 15:26-27
PRAISE: Pope St. John I made peace between the emperors of the East and West.

THE GOD OF LIFESTYLE
“It is the decision of the Holy Spirit, and ours too, not to lay on you any burden beyond that which is strictly necessary.” —Acts 15:28
The elders of the church of Jerusalem and the Holy Spirit decided Gentile Christians did not need to be circumcised, but rather had to change their lifestyle, “namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals” (Acts 15:29). Meat sacrificed to idols was a major item in the marketplace. Therefore, to abstain from this was, in part, an economic decision. The Gentiles were also told to change their eating habits. In other words, the Gentiles were required to make lifestyle changes in the areas of money, food. This is comparable to telling a modern person, even a Christian, to stop buying certain foods, to quit eating meat or drinking caffeine.

When the letter containing these rules was read, “there was great delight at the encouragement it gave” (Acts 15:31). If a similar letter requiring lifestyle changes was read at your church, would the people be delighted or defiant? Lifestyle is the false god of the modern church. Our comforts, pleasure, and entertainment mean more to us than loving God. That’s where our time and money goes, and God gets the leftovers, if there are any. Repent!

PRAYER: Risen Jesus, may I repent of living for selfish pleasure.
PROMISE: “This is My commandment: love one another as I have loved you.” –Jn 15:12
PRAISE: St. Isidore was canonised in 1622. He’s in good company: St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Philip Neri were declared saints at the same time.

BROKEN DOWN VEHICLES ON THE ROAD
“Then they prayed, ‘O Lord, You read the hearts of men. Make known to us which of these two You choose for this apostolic ministry, replacing Judas, who deserted the cause and went the way he was destined to go.’ ” —Acts 1:24-25
Things break. People break and cry, and they break down and die. So many things and people break that we may give up fixing all the broken things, even the broken people. While we may take our time to fix broken things, we need to take broken people, broken hearts, broken relationships, and broken lives to the Lord immediately. He has fixed every person’s brokenness through His death and Resurrection, and He wants to show His love for the broken right away (see Ps 34:19).

After Jesus’ death, the apostles were broken. Judas had sold and betrayed Christ. Then he committed suicide. Peter denied Christ three times. All the apostles abandoned Christ. They all had sinned grievously. They were so broken that they refused to face their brokenness. But they began to turn to the Lord and pick up the pieces of their ruined lives when they sought the Lord’s will in replacing Judas. Matthias, Judas’ replacement, was the focal point of the apostles’ repenting of their lethargy and bringing their brokenness to the Lord.

Do you have a breakdown of communication, discipline, freedom, love, or hope in your life? How long have you let your brokenness sit there untouched? Deal with your Judases by calling on the Lord. The Lord will send you Matthiases of healing and hope. Then with all the brokenness of your life in the healing hands of the Lord, you can receive the Holy Spirit in a new Pentecost.

PRAYER: Father, may we make straight the way of the Holy Spirit.
PROMISE: “I no longer speak of you as slaves, for a slave does not know what his master is about. Instead, I call you friends, since I have made known to you all that I heard from My Father.” –Jn 15:15
PRAISE: Pray today with Pope Francis for the end to Coronavirus-prayer is a powerful

TO YIELD FRUIT, YIELD

—John 15:2
Disciples of Jesus bear a lot of fruit, and they can grow weary. They need energy because they are consumed as they live out their calling. A major battleground of a veteran disciple is the temptation to invest time in people or things they enjoy, which “give them life” and re-energize them. After a while, the disciple can find himself or herself starting to be energized enough by this source that they come to it to get energized instead of coming to Jesus (cf Mt 11:28). At this point, the activity has become a “sucker branch” that not only bears no fruit, it also consumes the disciple’s time so they don’t have much time or energy to bear fruit.

These activities may be good or even religious. Yet if we won’t yield these activities to the will of God for the purpose of bearing fruit, the Father will soon come with a sharp sickle to cut them off. “He prunes away every barren branch” (Jn 15:2) from our life. He insists we bear fruit for His glory (Jn 15:8).

Jesus is the Vine, our Energy, and our Strength (Ps 18:2). He knows we grow weary, so He invites us to come to Him to be refreshed (Mt 11:28). He consumes us (Heb 12:29). However, as we are consumed by Him, we are not burned out (see Ex 3:2). Instead, we receive sustaining energy (Col 1:29; Heb 1:3) and new life (Jn 10:10). In Jesus, the Source of our strength, we have strength for everything (Phil 4:13).

PRAYER: Jesus, when I get tired for You, may I never get tired of You. Blow a cool, refreshing wind of the Spirit in my life so that I may bear abundant, enduring fruit for Your glory (Jn 15:8, 16).
PROMISE: “He who lives in Me and I in Him, will produce abundantly, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” –Jn 15:5
PRAISE: Our Lady of Fatima appeared to three children in 1917. The message of Fatima is simple: Pray.