As I suggested in the last issue of this article, faith calls us to lead an authentic life, that is a life which is lived in accord with our beliefs. So, the big question we must always ask ourselves is: What do I really believe?

What do we believe? We are called to believe that God came into our world Himself in the Person of Jesus in order to show us how to live this earthly life and, therefore, acquire the fullness of life. Jesus taught us how to live. He taught us that in order to be true children of God we must learn how to unconditionally love and forgive others. To accomplish this we must not judge others and treat others as we want to be treated. Embedded in this approach to life is also love of our enemies.

Over the years I have found that perhaps the greatest obstacle people encounter to bringing about complete personal change and growing in the likeness of Jesus is this command to love our enemies. Still buried deeply in the psyche of humanity is a desire to hate our enemies and to respond to violence with violence. The desire to “crush” and “destroy” those we see as enemies seems to overwhelm any real spiritual growth. I think that the one action of Jesus that most modern people do not fully embrace is His forgiveness of those who murdered Him. This is also the reason why humans have constantly looked upon Jesus as more God than human – why people find it difficult to accept the fact that Jesus, as a full human being, forgave those who crucified Him. To many this seems to be impossible for any human being since we humans seem to refuse to forgive others who do much less to us. This tells me that humankind still does not understand that this earthly existence is given to us to help us transform/change the way that we think and behave. Ask yourself: What is the purpose of my life?