"So, this is the commandment he has given us that anyone who loves God must also love his brother"
John 1 : 20 - 21
The God that Jesus called “Abba,” Father, was, is and always will be a God of love and compassion, a God always read to forgive us. God accepts us as we are. He knows what we are like and what weak creatures we are. However, we share in God’s divine nature so we have the light of His grace to reach out to those in eed of help, to be merciful to the weak and compassionate towards all our brothers and sisters.
Jesus says in Luke 5 : 32 “I have not come to all the virtuous but sinners.” Christ always went out to the people on the margin, those rejected by society. He dined with them and let them know they were God’s special friends, God’s children.
No matter what their past was like, if they were sorry and acknowledged their sins, then they had God’s loving forgiveness.
The publican in the Temple asked God to be merciful to him because he was a sinner. St. Luke tells us in Lk. 18 : 9 that the publican “went home at rights with God.”
“Glory be to him whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.”
Prayer
God, our Father, Jesus has invited all of us who are worried and troubled to come to Him with our burdens. He promised to be with us always. Lord, help us to put our trust in you. Amen