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From Father Andrew Bahhi: Answering the Call of Jesus

January 12, 2020
in The Word
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After He was baptized, Christ chose his Holy disciples and spoke of repentance and coming back to the kingdom. Coming back where we came from to enjoy His kingdom, peace, joy and happiness.

He began with a very important statement as He began to preach. The message for all of us to understand is the #1 priority in our all life. “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” or in another translation “…for the kingdom of Heaven is near.” And we don’t mean years, we mean seconds.

The salvation won’t come without breaking our heart, and we repent and come to Him. Without real repentance, it only comes from the mouth. It’s not real.
But we know we are saved if we repent from all our heart.

There is a lot of explanations for the word “repent.” But there is only one good one. When we lose our direction, we make a U-turn.

Also, the original meaning of sin was you missed your goal. You go from A to Z, and if you miss the direction that’s sin.

So when we sin we must change our way.

Repent means to change our thoughts about the earthly way we live, and to go back to the Bible and the teaching of the church and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

If we repent with all our heart, we will drink the water of the forgiveness. And if we repent, we will be saved. That’s why our savior Jesus Christ begins His preaching by calling people to repent.

As we all have a smart phone, Jesus is calling you the same way. Are you waiting to answer?

Are you awaiting to answer your spiritual phone? Open your heart like you open your phone, and you will hear His voice. And it is the sweetest phone ever. This is a voice that is calling you for comfort, forgiveness, for peace.

For love and forgiveness.

Jesus first called four disciples — Peter, Andrew, John, James. And right away they left everything behind and followed Him. To repent means you leave every earthly desire behind, and then you are following Him.

On holidays like Christmas and Easter — We do the Elevation of the Cross for the four corners of the world, and we do it by blessing the whole world. And, likewise, Jesus called these four to go to the four corners of the world. This calling is not only for those who are baptized or Christian by name. It is for everybody. And it is our responsibility to share this with everybody.

We have all been baptized. But are we all followers of Jesus Christ from ALL our heart? By reading today’s message, Jesus is calling us not to be Christian by name only but rather to be true Christians and true followers, and to open our hearts and to follow Him, and accept him in our hearts. And He will forgive you and He will make you His own true follower and disciple.

Learn more in Father Andrew’s sermon video.

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