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The Sanctification of the Church – By Father Andrew Bahhi

October 31, 2021
in Feature Articles, The Word
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Today is the Sunday of the Sanctification of the Church. The new year of the ecclesiastical church. From this Sunday until Christmas is eight Sundays.

Sanctification means to make something holy. To set something apart, or consecrate. For us, it means a call for all of us to be holy from inside.

Be holy because your Father in heaven is holy.

The best reading for this is in the book of Matthew, when the Lord was with his disciples, asking “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13). We should ask this question every day, because we have to answer it in order to consider ourselves true Christians, believers and followers of the Savior.

Who is Jesus to you?

The evil one wants to confuse people about the identity of Christ. He wants people to doubt who is Jesus.

Why is the evil one doing this? There are still people asking is Jesus really God. This includes those who are against Christians. They are fighting to prove Jesus is only a prophet but could not become a man like you and me. They are fighting for one reason – to prove Jesus is not God. Even the evil one does not know who Jesus is.

The confusion is to make people all people do not believe Christ is God, so then they become separated from being saved.

When Jesus asked this question to the disciples, Peter replied “You are the Messiah. You are the anointed one, by God, to save every one of us sent by God. You are the living and true God.”

Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

When Peter said this is God, the incarnate, the living God, right away, the Lord told him that he is blessed. “Not because you are smart, but my father from above revealed this to you.”

Paul said in 1 Corinthians that no one can say that Jesus is God except by the Holy Spirt.

If we don’t believe in this fact, then there is no salvation for us.

The Lord said in the book of John, I am my father. In other words, Jesus is God and God is Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, this is what we have to do today. To return to our savior and believe in Him as God and Savior. To doubt in him means there is no way to the eternal life for any one of us.

I pray that we all can be holy and be true believers in Christ because this is the reason the Lord came and became a man.

Learn more in Father Andrew’s sermon video here.

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