“Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give”.\u00c2\u00a0 Have you ever thought about it that way- that whatever it is that you have, your talents, your home, your family, even your limitations- they are yours, given to you by God, for free; and so, you are being commissioned to give them to others freely.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
First of all, they are without cost.\u00c2\u00a0 Because whatever you think you did to “earn them” counts for nothing compared to the fact that God gifted them to you.\u00c2\u00a0 Without God, you could not have anything.\u00c2\u00a0 It is only by the grace of God that we exist and have anything.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Imagine how God feels when we don’t recognize His free gifts to us.\u00c2\u00a0 Our reading from Hosea today kind of describes God’s feelings in such a case.\u00c2\u00a0 Listen again to God’s words from Hosea; first he says:\u00c2\u00a0 “I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks.”\u00c2\u00a0 Wow, what kind of love is that!\u00c2\u00a0 But then, he says:\u00c2\u00a0 “Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer.\u00c2\u00a0 My heart is overwhelmed, my pity is stirred”.\u00c2\u00a0 Now this doesn’t just apply to the people of Israel. Many of God’s people of today don’t seem to have a clue, not a clue that they have their gifts by virtue of God.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, what are we supposed to do with our God given gifts once they are recognized as such?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, in the Gospel Jesus sends His apostles out to proclaim that the Kingdom of God is at hand.\u00c2\u00a0 And that is not all, because He asks them to do His work in a certain way:\u00c2\u00a0 First, he tells them they are not to take money- rather they are to depend on the people they visit to provide food and shelter for them.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, he asks the Apostles to trust in His providence.\u00c2\u00a0 Likewise, we are asked to trust in God’s providence when we respond to his gifts.\u00c2\u00a0 And second, Jesus says they are to proclaim their message, and offer peace to all.\u00c2\u00a0 Whoever accepts them, God’s peace will also rest on them; but whoever rejects them and their message,\u00c2\u00a0 God’s peace will remain with the apostle.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, when you recognize and use your God given gifts in the way God intended them, no matter what the world says or does or thinks of you, no matter what the reaction from those you try to give to,\u00c2\u00a0 you can be certain that God’s peace will be with you throughout.\u00c2\u00a0 That is God’s promise to us who try.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
These two elements of our mission to give freely of our talents- trust in God and confidence in the peace of God, are keys to a very difficult part of being a Christian- giving freely of ourselves.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time Hosea 11: 1-4, 8e-9; Mt 10: 7-15 Dc. Larry Brockman “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give”.\u00c2\u00a0 Have you ever thought about it that way- that whatever it is that you have, your talents, your home, your family, even your limitations- they are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}