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From the Gospel of Luke 14:1,7-14
People who are concerned with their own advancement and agenda have little room for anyone else. With an almost addictive pursuit of esteem and acknowledgment from others, they become little more than entitled embodiments of the vice of pride. Public humiliation or embarrassment can hit them hard. While avoiding humiliation and embarrassment may be advantageous to obtaining worldly success, they are much less desirable motivations for entering the Kingdom of God. Avoiding embarrassment is a self-serving motivation. Pride and all of its manifestations have no place on God’s agenda, neither do worldly success and fulfillment. In fact, we have been clearly told that if we love our lives, we will lose them. Therefore, if you really want to find your true station in life, learn to give yourself away.
While this may sound foolish to secular ears, it actually makes perfect sense. God, who is love, makes each of us in His image. Love, and therefore God, is in our DNA. That being the case, love is never love if it is kept to oneself or hoarded. Love needs to be shared and given away. Therefore, it is the only proper motivation for entering the Kingdom of God. The door to happiness is only opened when we realize that all we are and all we have is due only to God’s grace. Without God we are nothing.
Love is the remedy for pride and protects us from ourselves. God asks us to be humble. Only when we are free from the traps of pride and arrogance that we can begin to follow the path to true humility. Only one who is humble can rightly love and be of service to God. “God makes use only of the humble as his instruments (Jean-Pierre de Caussade).” The humble one does not need others to give them worth and value. Their self-esteem comes from the much more secure foundation of God. Only those who are entirely free can give themselves freely to others. Love must always be our motivation for doing all things. Be content that God has invited you to the banquet of life. Concern yourself with accepting the invitation, and don’t worry about where you will sit.
©LPi
