Your spirit should bless the Lord, the great King and Lord over all who created everything in heaven and on Earth as a gift to you. Let our hearts be raised to the King of heaven, our God and King who is the beginning and end of all things.

He lasts forever, and we last forever. We live in Him forever and so we will last forever. He has promised us everlasting life if we live in Him in good times or bad times. We should pray that all of us, children of the righteous, will be gathered together as we thank the Lord and bless the Lord of all ages.

Once we are confident in the Lord and praise Him with full voice, nothing on Earth will disturb us — not even our weaknesses and sins — because even in our times of unfaithfulness He calls out to us: “Turn back, you sinners, do the right before me.”

He will look upon us poor sinners and look upon us with mercy because He loves us. I know that the Lord loves me, a sinner, and wants me, a sinner, because I never stop loving Him and wanting to be with Him.

“Happy are those who love you, Lord, and happy are those whom the Lord seeks at all times. We must always rejoice and behold Him who always seeks us out so that we may be joyfully united with Him forever and ever.”

In our lives here on Earth we know we will always have an inclination to sin because of concupiscence. We know that we will fall 70 times seven each day, but the Lord blesses us and raises us up because, deep in the depths of ourselves, we keep on seeking Him out; deep down in our hearts we love Him. And as long as we keep on loving Him, despite our wrongs, happy are those who love Him because He loves us and never separates Himself from us.

There is one thing we ask of the Lord, that we never stop loving Him and He never stops loving us. We have been told by the Lord that we will live forever, once we trust in Him. He knows our humanity, He became one of us, He became the same as us except in sin. He is sympathetic with us, wretched man though we are.

As Philippians 4:6-7 tells us; “Do not be anxious of anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God will surpass all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ.”

Thanks be to our God, Jesus Christ!

We struggle through life and we know that all of us will endure death. Even the Son of man experienced death. Everything passes away, nothing lasts. We would like to live forever; we try to last as long as we can, we pretend we will last forever on this Earth. We try to make the most of pleasure, beauty, money, achievements, jobs and even family life. But we will all die. All things will be just for a time. The only thing that lasts is God’s heavenly kingdom.

In the meanwhile, what shall we do here on Earth? We should start living our lives in Christ — we must speak like Him and do what He did, ie the Beatitudes. It means we must struggle, suffer, and serve one another joyfully.