Therefore you are to be perfect, as Your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48.

The Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Romans 14:17.

And continuing our 351 Old Testament prophecies, promises of God, fulfilled in Jesus Christ, we come to number 149: To ascend to the right-hand of the Father. Psalm 110:1: The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” And, Mark 16:19: So then, when the LORD Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.

I loved what Dallas Willard shared in Hearing God today: “The substance of Paul’s teachings about salvation is drained off when we fail to take literally his words about our union and identification with Christ. Without this his writings can be made into a “Roman Road” of doctrinal assents, by which we supposedly gain God’s approval merely for believing what every demon believes to be true about Jesus and His work. James S. Stewart’s profound book A Man in Christ deals with this and corrects it: Everything that Paul associates with salvation – joy, and peace, and power, and progress, and moral victory – is gathered up in the one word he uses so constantly, “life.” Only those who through Christ have entered into a vital relationship with God are really “alive.” . . . What Paul saw with piercing clearness was that this was nothing else than the life of Christ Himself. He shared His very being with them.” And in Devotions for Women by Ann Spangler, she shared from N. T. Wright: “You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire . . . You are – strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself – accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world. Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of His creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow non-human creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world – all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.”

Yesterday, I watched a video of the actor Andrew Garfield and Fr. James Martin, S.J., a Jesuit Priest, as they discussed deeply spiritual matters. Garfield is the lead actor in my favorite movie, Hacksaw Ridge, and the reason I love it so much is that he is portraying a real person during World War II. His faith and devotion to God and what he was able to accomplish on the battlefield in trusting God, is nothing less than the examples we have throughout the Old Testament. And in preparing for his lead role in his new movie The Uprising, which I have not seen, he entered into an extended time of listening prayer to God as led by the Jesuit order. To listen to two men speaking together about deep spiritual matters fed my own deep hunger and thirst for spiritual. How I wish we all of us could enter into these types of discussions. We need them. You can watch the video on YouTube on Andrew Garfield on the need for prayer in confusing times. I loved what he said about how the world feels very upside-down now, a lot of injustice, a lot of corruption, that there’s a lostness in the world and people are being encouraged to feel lost, and that he is heartbroken. That resonated so deeply in me. How we all need to really see how lost we truly are today! Does anyone really see the times they are living through when God acted?

***LISTEN AND ACT – O great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him and keep His commandments, I have sinned and committed iniquity. I have done wickedly and rebelled by departing from Your precepts and judgments. Neither have I heeded Your many reminders – through conscience, Scriptures, the wise counsel of friends, and the prompting of Your Spirit. O LORD, righteousness belongs to You, but shame to me because of my unfaithfulness against You. To You belong mercy and forgiveness, even though Your people have rebelled against You. Disaster has come upon us, yet we have failed to turn to You in prayer. O LORD, according to all Your righteousness, let Your anger and fury be turned away from us. Now therefore, our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, and for Your sake cause Your face to shine on us. O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations. For we dare not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds but because of Your great mercies. O LORD, hear! O LORD, forgive! O LORD, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for we are called by Your name. Daniel 9:4-19. Adapted.***