What You Freely Receive, Freely Give

One way to see how deep our relationship to God is the fruits of our lives. Only a healthy plant can produce good fruits. Only a soul filled with love and grace can be fruitful.

Our relationship with God must not get stagnant in a “Give Me” state. Even though God told us to pray for our daily bread, He also commands us to proclaim the Gospel for the salvation of souls, in short, we are all called to mission.

We cannot get stuck as receivers in our relationship with God. We cannot get stuck doing whatever we are doing for God so we can feel good, that tends to be more of a self-service than actual service, self-love than self-giving love.

Real love goes out and give. After it receives, it gives it away. Real love does not accumulate but disseminate.

So ask yourself a question. Is your relationship with God is based on making yourself feel good? Or is it out of concern for others and the desire to love of God?

Is your relationship with God just lip service?

“If we cannot love the person whom we see, who can we love God, whom we cannot see?” – Mother Teresa

If are truly love God, we want to share in His mission. It is a compulsion that comes from a heart that is in love.

“Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” -  1 Corinthians 9:16

The Father asks us to pray, but He also commands us to work in the vineyard. Both are required to have a full relationship with God. And you don’t have to go far away to be missionaries. You can work on your own vineyard, your family. You can pray and offer sacrifices for those people who has no one to pray for them. You can use the internet to evangelize, that is not that hard. You can preach the Gospel in your own little way. Going to mission only means going out of yourself, your self-absorption, your own ego, to serve others.

If we have truly experienced God’s love, then we want to share it. It is that simple.

"The term 'laity' is here understood to mean all the faithful except those in Holy Orders and those who belong to a religious state approved by the Church. That is, the faithful, who by Baptism are incorporated into Christ and integrated into the People of God, are made sharers in their particular way in the priestly, prophetic, and kingly office of Christ, and have their own part to play in the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the World." (#897 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church)