Hot!

JUST like in some aspects and affairs in our life, in our spiritual life we also need to be hot. If we truly are to be spiritually alive, thatś what is necessary. Otherwise, weĺl just be wasting our time and exposing ourselves to danger.

In the Book of Revelation itself, the exhortation to be hot (or cold) is made. ¨I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I would that you were cold or hot. But because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit you out of my mouth.¨ (3,15-16)

In the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, though marked with a certain calmness and restraint, what is clear is the determination and single-mindedness to carry out this mission. When it was time for him to go to Jerusalem to finish his work by offering his life on the Cross, he could not be stopped.

Peter tried to, and he received a stinging rebuke: ¨Get behind me, Satan. You are a scandal to me, because you savor not the things of God, but only the things of men.¨ (Mt 16,23)

In another part of the Gospel, our Lord showed that determination by saying: ¨No man takes my life away from me. I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.¨(Jn 10,18)

A closer scrutiny of our Lordś life reveals that he was always doing the will of his Father. ¨Not my will, but yours be done,¨ (Lk 22,42) goes that famous line showing how united his will was to his Fatherś will, in spite of all the suffering.

It might be good for all of us to examine how we use our own will, and in what condition it is found. Is our will simply our own, completely possessed and used by us as if it did not come from somewhere and meant to be engaged somewhere? Is that will hot in pursuit of something, or is it simply taking it easy, waiting for things to happen?

Very often we take this matter for granted, in the thought that our will is simply our own, our most precious treasure where no one is supposed to enter or to influence, except what we want to do with it.

This attitude, to my mind, is the very basic anomaly that can come to us. Itś the unfaithful spouse and parent who begets all the other disorders in our life. Unless we realize this, I don´t think we can start to really understand the nature, purpose and meaning of our life here on earth.

Our will is a gift from God. Together with our intelligence, itś what makes us image and likeness of God. With grace, it makes us children of his, meant not only to come from him and to belong to him like all other creatures, but also to participate in Godś very own life.

We need to engage our will with the will of God always. We cannot use it just by ourselves, hooking it up with just anything. That would be unfaithful to its origin and objective. That would hold it captive merely to our own designs and detached from the very mighty source of its life and energy.

We need to continually reinforce this union and consonance between Godś will and ours, given the fragile human condition we are in, what with all our weaknesses of the flesh and of the spirit, not to mention the confusing allurements of the world and the snares of the devil.

Thatś why thereś always need for it to be revved up and made hot frequently. Itś actually a bad sign when that will is idle and quite empty of the good stuff it is supposed to feed on, that is, the things of God and things of the others that should always occupy our mind and heart. This is what true love, our will’s best use, is.

This is our main problem. We do not know how to plug our will on God, and make it hot all the time.

For this, of course, we need to be trained. This should be our first and constant concern. This is possible. The means are there. In the first place, this is Godś will for us.

Otherwise, we will receive the reproach of Christ: ¨What does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul?¨ (Mt 16,26)