What Really Matters

 What does it mean to live for Christ? What does it mean when Paul tells us it is no longer he who lives but Christ who lives in him?

In Paul’s time it was believed that the only way to have a right relationship with God was to follow the law, the Ten Commandments and all the thousands of rules that derive from them.

But Paul rejected this idea and preached that the only road to justification, to having that right relationship with God, is through faith in Jesus Christ.

The Christians in Galatia had received Paul's message, but when he moved on, some Jewish Christians started going back to the old ways. When Paul heard about that, he wrote to them, definitively condemning the old law-centered view of salvation.

He writes, “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.”

We need this reminder just as much as the Galatians did. We are still vulnerable to the temptation that our first parents gave in to, the temptation of trying to achieve happiness solely through our own efforts. We are easily deceived into thinking that by arranging our lives with just the right combination of religion, popularity, money, and prestige, we will create our own heaven on earth.

But that's a lie.

As Saint Paul says, “if justification comes through the law,” (in other words, if happiness and peace can come through our own efforts) “then Christ died for nothing.”

Happiness and fruitfulness lie in Christ alone, in union and friendship with Him. That's why He came.

It is not enough to simply “follow the rules” and stay out of trouble. If that is all we do then we are trying to achieve heaven by our own merits. God wants more from us than that.

There is a wonderful story that illustrates this. It is one of those stories that, while it may not have happened, it conveys a transcendent truth.

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen.

He returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite. He put the cups and the coffee pot on the coffee table and told everyone to help themselves.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said:

"If you noticed, all the nice-looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. Why is that? The cup itself adds no quality to the coffee.

What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eying each other's cups.

Do you think this can tell you something about your problems and stress?"

With our own efforts in life, all we can do is make cups. Jobs, money, prestige, popularity, appearances - these are just the cup, just the outside, just the container of life. But no mere cup, even the most beautiful and flashy, can satisfy our thirst.

What really matters, what matters more than anything, is that our cups be filled with the right drink: with Christ.

The coffee cup is meaningless without the coffee.

Just so, all our efforts and achievements in life are meaningless unless they are filled by friendship with Christ.

God invites us into a relationship of friends and family, a relationship of love. This type of relationship is a living, dynamic one. To love Christ and to want to be near Him is to be crucified with Him.

This is the work of the Christian, to be crucified with Christ, and to live for God.

It means standing up for the Truth even when it is unpopular. It means finding time to pray, no matter what. It means we fulfill our responsibilities even when we are exhausted and forgive even when we feel like taking revenge. It means that we stay faithful to the teachings of Jesus. And it means that when we fail, we humbly confess our sins as we would apologize to a friend we have hurt, so that that relationship can be restored.

It means that we must reflect Christ to the whole world, so that when people look at us they do not see us, they see Christ.

Pax Vobiscum