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Gerry Gutierrez' Update
The Memorial Day in Heaven will be your prayer life of earth. Jesus is found early and praying alone. May 27, 2018 It is just
impossible not to believe in a man whose first thoughts in the morning are for
God and he prays while others are slumbering as if saying “a little sleep, a
little slumber, a little folding of hands, a little rest…” Prayer in a way
is like standing at the edge of the universe in absolute loneliness in a dark,
cold, violent surroundings where the company of others is useless and does not
make you feel warm or secure. Instead the collective loneliness accentuated
more the feeling of being alone. Newborn babies in the neonatal room at the
hospital and away from their mothers whether crying or sleeping they are in
utter dependence and loneliness though in togetherness. Jesus, more than
anyone understands real loneliness and though followed by many, he never found
his own hunger for God satisfied in togetherness, so he went long before
daybreak to a solitary place to pray and be with God. A lonely life is
even lonelier as in solitary place as if at the edge of the universe alone in
prayer. Jesus was never alone because of his own confession when he said, “You
will all abandon me but I am not alone, my Father is with me” Whatever your
view of prayer is, it should not escape the picture of standing at the edge of
the universe alone with many solitary men and women with one foot on holy
ground and the other in the world where you have been placed by God within
space and time. It seems to me
the expression of a child on the beach “at the waters edge” getting
in and out in the water from ankle deep to knee deep to dry ground as happy as
she could. This is a fitting illustration to make our point. The beautiful
child is happy doing that which she loves in her tiny little bikini and
pigtails making her own rules of the game of running back and forth at will.
She know to be alone before the Ocean in Atlantic City, but she also knows that
she is never alone because her father is watching her as the apple of his eye. No one has
experienced true and utter loneliness as Jesus did and those to whom he has invited
in the fellowship of his sufferings in His Island like places as he did with
John in Patmos. If someone did
not have the need of prayer as we know it, that was Jesus the Son of God and
God the Son and third person of the Trinity. Yet no one took prayer more
seriously than Jesus. For
Jesus, the true Son and disciple of the Father, “to be” with God was
more important than life. The definition of
discipleship for which I am willing to pay any cost including my life was
stated by Jesus, “Jesus chose twelve to be with them.” Jesus came to earth to
be with His disciples. He left earth after charging His disciples with these
solemn words, “As the Father has sent me, so send I you.” Jesus prayed and
taught his disciples to pray as if breathing. Try this
experiment right now and hold your breath and tell me how long you can live
without breathing. I need not rub it in because there is no need. No one can
live without breathing. How much more can we live spiritually healthy lives
without prayer? Praying is more urgent than food, is urgent and it should
be treated in an urgent manner as the priority of our daily lives. Without
breath your first organ that suffers is your brain and therefore your way of
thinking and that directly affect whatever you do in a very serious way. Meet God early in
the morning before the birds compete with you in prayer and praise. Go to be
with him who is waiting already. You have to be a truly loving father to
understand how God could be waiting for fellowship with you. I wither without
the fellowship of my children and rather death than their absence from my life.
I just long to be near them as only a prayer away.” Why did Jesus
pray? Only in absolute loneliness will one truly know that for him there
is no one but God, no one but Jesus. Therefore, nobody should be where prayer
is not King and Lord. We are made to pray, that is to agree with God in
holy surrender and oneness and not only to live forever. Why would I want life
if I were not going to live to be with God? Prayer is the capacity to say Yes to
God. To all of you who
feel at the edge of the universe and alone, Jesus said, “I am not alone, my
Father is with me.” So is Jesus with you as he has promised, “I will be with
you to the end of the ages.” A
witness of Jesus on duty. Gerry Gutierrez PS. The
blessed loneliness on earth is from the hand of God in preparation for
final.
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