In Leviticus Chapter 23, Moses lays down a law, for a great celebration of joy. The Israelites were commanded, in the sternest possible language, to express their thanksgiving and joy to God with a great celebration. They're actually warned that, if they fail to do this, if they fail to be happy and celebrate, that they will be cut off from Israel. Very interesting, to think that we need to be commanded to be happy and have a party. How many times have you told your kids, "stop sulking around and put a smile on your face"? In this feast of feasts, God tells us the same thing, precisely what he's telling us on this day: Rejoice, and again I say rejoice! The joy of our Lord is our strength.

As we continue to Golgotha may we be sober and circumspect. We are further aided today by the disturbing veiling of our friends and the light of Christ. The Jews tried to stone Him and He hid Himself. Our Lord Jesus, do not hide yourself from us, make yourself known!

We want to be closer to God, but something unexpected happens when he takes a step toward us: we often step back away from him. This is just what happens when God shows up at the door of your heart, but if you let Him have his way, your whole house will be illumined and filled with Joy.

In this combat remember who you are with, you are with the stronger man- Jesus. If you are not with him, then, as he warns- you are against him, and He tells us how to recognize what side you are on: The one with him gathers, the one against him scatters.

To be with Jesus, to be holy and good is to gather. It is to reconcile, to make peace, to forgive, to sympathize and understand, to come along side and defend, to remain loyal, to work through conflict with humble sincerity. It is to be loyal to those you are in the fox hole with, not to turn on them and bite and devour- we are on the same side, we have a common enemy, and it is not one another.

Don't be confused by the fact that only three of the disciples were there on the Holy Mount at the Transfiguration. We were not at his Nativity, nor did we witness his miracles or hear his teachings, we did not see Him die or the empty tomb and glorious body, we did not put our hand in the scars or have him breath on us the Holy Spirit. And yet all of these things are ours, as much as those who were there are the time. We have received them by the word of their testimony and through faith, and they are every bit as real to us as they were to them, because we have the Holy Spirit.

This is the power of God's love, that he can through our repentance even make use of our own failures to bring about our salvation and perfection. God's love and power are absolutely triumphant over every evil, He uses the Devil and He even uses our own sin for our salvation. But we have to go willingly, we have to follow the Spirit like Jesus into this wilderness and participate in the great reversal of Adam's disobedience and enslavement to the flesh, by fasting, by renunciation, by dying to self.

Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between God’s loving discipline unto redemption and God’s wrath unto destruction- difficult, except for faith and trust in the love of our heavenly Father who sent His son to die that we might be made holy. And this the constant theme in all the prayers we pray tonight, an expression of confidence in God’s mercy, while we are crying out lamenting our woeful condition.

Are you ready to go with Him? We set out this Wednesday, as a family we go up together so that we can walk with him to Golgotha as he bears our sin, so that we can stand at the foot of the cross with our Mother and adore the Savior's sacrifice, so that we can meet him with Mary Magdalene at the tomb as he comes out in glorious victory.

Now the takeaway from this parable is simple. There is one good heart and three defective hearts. What makes the three defective hearts defective is not three complex problems but in the final analysis, essentially just one problem. And the good heart is described as possessing the one thing the defective hearts lack. As I said the takeaway is pretty simple, there is one thing we must avoid and if we are to be good there is one thing we must attain. The defection in each case is to lack perseverance and faithfulness and the essence of the good heart is in Jesus words to cling to the word with steadfast endurance. That word cling is katecho means to hold fast with tenacity, to bind it to oneself and possess it.

If you came and said to me, "Father, I have a passion to become a master blacksmith", and I told you that you need to be prepared for five hard years of humiliation and failure before you even begin to see much success, and then you get started, and in the first month you are shocked at how hard it is to do anything resembling skill, you will either give up, or remember what you were told, and perservere. The mystery lies in your own heart as to what you will do, but the warning should steel your resolve to fight on. The same goes for anything worth doing, including marriage, ministry, and being a Christian, in which you are invited to die on a cross.