St Lukes Podcast

God wants our hearts. He desires us and desires to be with us. It's up to us then whether we turn to Him or not.

What does Christ mean when He tells His disciples to become like little children? Fr Sam helps enlighten us with this passage of the Gospel, teaching us the meaning of Christs timeless words.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Apostles. May their blessings always be with us, Amen!

Love thy enemies. This command from Christ to us seems radical, however it is only one among a plethora of other commandments our Lord gives to us to ultimately become like Him. This isn't radical Christianity, it's purely what's necessary for every single one of us to become true Christians.

When we preach the Gospel we have to ensure that we are always putting the needs of others before ours. In doing this we will be not only fulfilled, but will have truly lived the Christian message.

Watch! Our Lord beckons to us all multiple times throughout the Gospels to be vigilant, but vigilant for what? For many of us we go through life almost in a dream-like state, without ever realising that we are being robbed of opportunities to grow closer to God and to live for Him by the snares of the world, demonic forces and our own passions. God grants us clarity in many moments of our lives to wake us up so that we may turn, repent and begin anew to take off the old man and pursue Him, the beginning and end of our salvation.

God delights for us to persist and to wrestle with Him. It is the one thing He desires for us to do, to persevere and to seek Him and ultimately to demand from Him just as our forefather Jacob, blessing. May God give us strength and humility to seek Him diligently so that we may persist and strive for Him that we may receive Christ enthroned in our hearts.

The only difference between us and the saints is that they yielded to the Holy Spirit. Many of us struggle and try to conquer our sins and passions through sheer willpower, but it's only through the grace of the Holy Spirit that we are able to resist our sins and move closer to God.

In the Gospel today Christ tells his disciples and by virtue us that in this world we will have trouble and tribulation and that in Him we 'may' have peace. One is definitive and the other is contingent on us. One will come upon us inevitably and the other will not. So then let us press into God begging Him and pleading Him for His mercies. For Christ is the only true joy giver, who alone is able to comfort us and support us in all our tribulations and adversities. For He alone has overcome the world.

Christ calls us to endure and to persevere to the end, for he who does so will receive the crown of Life. We may many opportunities within each day where those around us may unjustly say something against us and it is this very moment that the Lord gives to us so that we may persevere and endure all things for the sake of love.

Join us as we begin our study into the book of James

Sometimes we come to Christ to be healed, but instead begin to rationalise how we must be healed. What processes are involved and how we should be treated. Instead we ought to come to Him with no agenda or preconceived notions in our mind. Only then shall we like the woman at the well, be saved and drink of the Living Water.

Where do I need to return to Him? Our Holy Church guides us by giving to us a number of things to remind us to return to him; fasts, saints, confession and the like. These things all ultimately guide us back to our Lord, so that whatever season we find ourselves in, whether it be Pascha or the Holy 50, we can always begin to seek Him wholeheartedly.

Faith and doubt go hand in hand. It is through doubt that if we are willing, God can reveal Himself more to us. The goal is to grow closer to Him through this unbelief, rather than to pull away from Him.

Our Lord's eyes are upon every single one of us. He is always seeking our hearts and even more so in His glorious resurrection He is seeking hearts to be set aflame once again. Hearts that have grown cold and have denied Him just like Peter. Yet in the reading of todays Gospel, it is our Lord who is seeking Peter to be reunited with Himself. The same is for us, if we have strayed or turned away from God, He is seeking us out once again so that we can come back to Him.

Our Lord's love for us is unfathomable. His sacrifice on the Cross for all mankind should deeply wound us not only for Pascha or for the succeeding Holy 50, but it should be at every moment. Whenever I take away my gaze from Him I begin to die, I begin to fall away from the very source of Life Himself. Yet He is merciful and at every moment, if I should look up to Him and to His cross, then once again I am filled with His love and His mercy. May our Lord grant us all to be wounded with His love and may we spend the rest of our days gazing upon Him, lifting our eyes unto Him so that we may find salvation.

Everything can be answered by prayer. As we approach Good Friday, the Church in Her wisdom slows down on all our prayers and praises in order that we would contemplate and offer up prayers unto our Lord for His sacrifice for us. Let us all draw near to our Lord in prayer as we walk with Him to his trial and ultimately His crucifixion tomorrow.

Mary breaking the flask of perfume over Christ's feet in preparation for is burial exemplifies to us how we should be with God each and every day. During Pascha the Church has a number of prayer and praise services, accompanied by an increase in the number of liturgies. All of this is to force us to draw nearer to God now more than ever, however this can only be fully embraced if we also within these services give all of ourselves to God. Often we give God little 'drops' and convince ourselves that this is enough, but Mary shows us that we have to give God our all and in return He will come and live within our hearts and reign within us. And the joy of His resurrection will only then be complete within us.

It is so easy to fall into the trap of routine. Coming to Church, receiving the mysteries, doing services. And yet amidst all of that, do we actually know our Lord? Do we intimately seek Him and pray to Him? Will it come to the end of days and will we hear those fearful and dreaded words? Now is the time for sobriety and for watchfulness that God would help us to be faithful and to be those wise servants who are awaiting their Masters arrival!

When we know the power of our Lord, then we can also truly come as we are. We can come with our sins and knowingly submit them to Him. We can come before Him and ask Him to forgive us and to heal us.

The entrance of Christ into Jerusalem is how He exactly reveals Himself to us as well. In humility. And in turn we too, if we desire for Him enter in and to be enthroned upon our hearts must also humble ourselves.

What truly matters? In this story from the Gospel today, once this man was healed by Christ nothing else in the world mattered to him. He was before the feet of the Living God. For us we are encouraged by Fr Sam to insert ourselves into these stories and live in the same way.

We must not become like the Pharisees and lose sight of the true goal, the true end, Christ. Sometimes we can find ourselves being entangled within the practices and the commandments and seeing them as the end, however all things have been given to us by God to lead us unto Him.

As we wenter into Lent, Fr Sam encourages us to search our hearts and to see if there is any un-forgiveness toward others or to ourselves and to address it. For we cannot have communion with God if we are not reconciled to one another.

Blessed Feast of Theophany!

When we encounter Christ we cannot stay the same. Just as the Magi came and worshiped Jesus, then left via a different route, we are called to do the same in our lives. Each time we encounter Christ we must come away changed!

Blessed Feast of the Nativity!

As we read in the Gospel, the anticipation of the coming Messiah within Israel was drawing nigh. This same anticipation and hope is what we as Christians should be cultivating everyday within our hearts. Longing for our Lord above all else.

As we begin the New Year Fr Dan encourages us to seek our Lord a little more deeply day by day. As long as we continue to grow closer to Him slowly, then eventually we will realise that those small changes we couldnt see have led us to His very side.

The Light has come but it has to dispel the darkness. Just as our Lord is Incarnate into the world so also He is into our own hearts and lives, slowly dispelling the darkness that lies within each one of us.

All things will pass away, but Christ will not. In fact, He alone is eternal. Everything in this world is finite and has an end; quite often we tend not to thing about this and instead live our lives as if we are invincible. However, we need to be reminded of the fact that Christ alone is eternal and He desires for us to share in His eternity, so that we can be united with Him forever.

God has already given to us everything we need. He has blessed us beyond what we deserve. Each and every single day, each and every breath is a gift from God. Our relationship with Him should be based on this and this should occupy the forefront of our minds each and every day.

God loves when we are obedient to the commandments, but this is only the beginning. It is a means to the end which is a relationship with Him.

The ground of our heart is either receptive to God, or it is not. There is no neutrality. There is no middle ground. Unfortunately we often not receptive to Christ at all placing us against Him. We are at enmity with Him. Fr Dan teaches us that this should not be so, but instead we should be the opposite.

Join us as we take a deep dive into Holy Communion

Why does Christ speak in parables? It is because we as humans cannot fully grasp the things of eternity, but we are also called to seek heaven. So what do we do? We come to Christ and we ask Him to reveal these things to us so that we can understand these hidden mysteries. Ultimately so we can see the mystery of God's love for us.

Join us as we have Fr Paul come and speak to us about how to pray

We often forget that everything around us has been made by God and shows His power, glory and manifold wisdom. Just like St Andrew in the Gospel reading, let us all approach each day presenting to Christ whatever we have, with simple but fervent faith so that as we go out we have our lives filled with Christ.