True Treasure

Posted on June 9, 2020 by billtonnis
Image by 272447 from Pixabay

Let compassion and justice for the ‘least of these’ guide your life.

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As part of the following reflection, listen to my song “God Is the Goal” on YouTube and consider purchasing my songs on Amazon Music by clicking HERE. Thank you!

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Psalm 4:3

How long, O people, will you be hard of heart? Why do you love what is worthless, chase after lies?

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What are the things we thirst and yearn for?

If you look at our culture, the answer would be money, power and prestige.

Those are our culture’s signs of success.

All those things bring happiness that does not last.

They only lead to the desire for more of what can give us a new fleeting happiness.

All those things are worthless in the long run.

It truly is like, as the psalmist stated, chasing after lies.

Yet the glitter and allure are addictive.

Thomas Keating, the late Catholic monk and one of the founders of Centering Prayer, said all these attractions are due to our childhood emotional programs for happiness.

They can be traced back to our childhood desires for security, affection and control.

We are supposed to outgrow these aversions but unfortunately many don’t.

Many people’s behaviors remain entrenched in these programs, frequently on the subconscious level.

It takes a lot of self-awareness and perhaps professional therapy to uncover it.

Many hearts are hardened.

There is no true joy, love and peace.

Jesus told us that loving God and our neighbor as ourselves were the real keys to happiness.

He pointed us to helping the marginalized and oppressed: Whatever you did to the least of these you did to me” (Matthew 25).

Our core needs are met through the presence of God.

Who are the leaders who profess being compassionate and caring to the marginalized and oppressed, and who are the ones professing domination, greed and control?

Give your heart to the compassionate ones…for that is where you will find your true treasure (Matthew 6:21).

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Listen to the song of the day “God Is the Goal” on the Live to Love album by clicking HERE.

Purchase or stream my songs on Amazon Music by clicking HERE.

Purchase my book “Mercy Reigns: A Daily Devotional of Compassion, Comfort and Healing” on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Remember: God loves you!

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Listen

Posted on June 8, 2020 by billtonnis

The Spirit’s voice is heard in the inner room of your soul.

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As part of the following reflection, listen to my song “Turn Off the Noise” on YouTube by clicking HERE. Consider purchasing on Amazon Music to support my ministry by clicking HERE. Purchase my book “Mercy Reigns: A Daily Devotional of Compassion, Comfort and Healing” by clicking HERE. Thank you!

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1 Kings 17:2-4

The word of the LORD came to Elijah: Leave here, go east and hide in the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan. You shall drink of the stream, and I have commanded ravens to feed you there.

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Elijah was listening for God’s voice.

As St. John of the Cross said, “God’s first language is silence.”

And as Thomas Keating added, “Everything else is a poor translation.”

At the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky where Thomas Merton lived, you can often see signs in the dining hall that read, “Silence is spoken here.”

Many Christians have unfortunately lost the mystical, contemplative dimensions of their religion.

God has not stopped speaking to us, but many of us have stopped listening.

In order to hear, a contemplative prayer practice is essential, whether it is meditation or Centering Prayer which is my practice.

It is a time of silence to practice letting go and letting God.

The rub is, when you do this, don’t be surprised if you are asked to make some changes in your life.

Elijah was asked to leave his home and to settle in a particular place in the wilds where he would drink from a stream and be fed by ravens. And he did it!

Sometimes we may be asked to strip ourselves of all the attachments that have kept us confined to our comfort zones so that we are freed to live the life meant for us.

We may be asked to stop certain addictive practices.

We might be asked to change our social life or our politics.

We might even be asked to quit our jobs.

It might not be easy.

It will take trust.

But I guarantee it will lead you to an abundance of life.

You will come to know, in the words of Thomas Merton, your true self.

This will give new meaning to the first line in the Beatitudes where Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:30).

Or as it is translated in the original Aramaic by Neil Douglas-Klotz in his book, Blessings of the Cosmos, “Ripe are you who feel your personal strength drained away, your real power lies in the reign of Unity”; or, “Blessed are you who hold onto very little, yours is the wealth and rule of your original divine image.”

What could be more important?

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Listen to the song of the day “Turn Off the Noise” on the Listen to Your Heart album by clicking HERE.

Stream and/or purchase my songs on Amazon Music by clicking HERE.

Purchase my book “Mercy Reigns: A Daily Devotional of Compassion, Comfort and Healing” on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Remember: God loves you!

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Action Required

Posted on June 5, 2020 by billtonnis
NBC News photo

For love and justice to be real, they must be lived.

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(As part of this reflection, listen to my song “I Want to Follow You” and consider purchasing it on Amazon Music to support my ministry. Thank you!)

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2 Timothy 3:12

In fact, all who want to live religiously in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

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St. Paul knew the inner freedom gained through following the ways of Christ.

It freed him from being an agent of oppression and turned him into an agent of mercy.

It also got him beaten, stoned, jailed, and finally executed.

Following Jesus is dangerous.

Jesus is all about reaching out and helping those in need.

But it’s not just about helping but actually joining those people who have been rejected and marginalized.

He identifies with them and tells the oppressors that “whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me” (Matthew 25).

Jesus also took action when necessary such as overturning the tables of the money changers in the temple in Jerusalem.

They were selling doves to people to offer for sacrifice in the temple in order to receive God’s forgiveness.

This infuriated Jesus since God’s forgiveness is not a commodity to be purchased but is entirely free!

This was likely the incident that resulted in the powers that be to finally arrest him and kill him.

Christians, as followers of Jesus, are supposed to be doing what he did.

We are supposed to be going to where the oppressed are and joining them.

We’re supposed to be taking action on their behalf.

We are supposed to be working to change systemic injustice such as racism.

We are supposed to be speaking truth to power.

We are not supposed to be joining the powerful to crush the oppressed.

We are not supposed to be sitting back in our comfort zones and simply offering those in need “thoughts and prayers.”

If you are a Christian, it requires standing with the oppressed and facing persecution from those in power.

Each of us needs to ask ourselves how we’re doing with that.

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Listen to the song of the day “I Want to Follow You” on the Listen to Your Heart album by clicking HERE.

Please consider streaming and purchasing my songs on Amazon Music by clicking HERE.

Purchase my book “Mercy Reigns: A Daily Devotional of Compassion, Comfort and Healing on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Remember: God loves you!

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Floyd Effect

Posted on June 4, 2020 by billtonnis

What would happen if everyone truly made love their top priority?

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Along with the following reflection, please listen to my song “The Way You Are” and consider purchasing it on Amazon Music to support my ministry. Thank you!

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Mark 12:30-31

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

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When Jesus was asked which was the first of all the commandments, the above was his answer.

Life’s most important objectives are love and togetherness.

It couldn’t be any clearer than this.

God is the Source of everything.

And as scripture tells us: “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

We, and all creation, come from this Love.

For Jesus, our neighbor was everybody.

He made that clear by ordering us to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44).

Jesus’ statements about loving God and our neighbor as ourselves weren’t just pious platitudes only for holy people.

These were commandments for all people.

This is what Christianity is supposed to be about.

As Christian writer G.K Chesterton once said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”

With the killing of George Floyd and the tremendous upheaval it has evoked, perhaps we are witnessing a turning point where we will finally allow love to guide us and unite us – no matter what race, creed, gender or sexual orientation.

God loves all people exactly the way they are, and we are called to love all as if they were us.

Amen…and may it be so.

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Listen to the song of the day “The Way You Are” on YouTube by clicking HERE.

Please consider purchasing my songs on Amazon Music by clicking HERE.

Purchase my book “Mercy Reigns: A Daily Devotional of Compassion, Comfort and Healing” on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Remember: God loves you!

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Called and Sent

Posted on June 3, 2020 by billtonnis
Image by Comfreak from Pixabay

May each of us bring the light of love into the darkness.

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Along with the following reflection, please listen to my song “Mercy Reigns” and consider purchasing it on Amazon Music. Thank you!

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2 Timothy 1:8

So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for his sake; but bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.

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The gospel is the good news of God’s unconditional love for all.

The focus is to let this be known especially to the marginalized and the oppressed.

When people are not in tune with the gospel, when they are in a sense “unconscious” in that they are not aware of the Divine Reality of God’s love for all, they can do some horrendous things.

When such things happen, they can evoke more unconscious behavior such as revenge and all forms of hate.

Love is the only way to stop such a cycle.

Jesus looked upon people such as this from the cross and asked God to forgive them because “they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

We are now the only ones who can bring the healing and restorative message of God’s love to others.

That means we must be willing to leave our comfort zones and take the gospel to the people in need.

St. Paul knew the dangers of such actions.

It got him imprisoned and finally executed.

But his words and encouragement live on because the love of Christ cannot be defeated!

Each of us is being called to be a messenger of the good news and to bear our “share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.”

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Listen to the song of the day “Mercy Reigns” on the Mercy Reigns album by clicking HERE.

Stream and/or purchase the songs from my 4 albums on Amazon Music by clicking HERE.

Purchase my book “Mercy Reigns: A Daily Devotional of Compassion, Comfort and Healing” on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Remember: God loves you!

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Eternal Purpose

Posted on June 2, 2020 by billtonnis
Hubble Telescope photo – Nasa

When our short lives are over, how well we loved is all that will matter.

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Listen to my song “Let It Be Done to Me” by clicking HERE.

Purchase HERE. Thank you!

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Psalm 90:2

Before the mountains were born, the earth and the world brought forth, from eternity to eternity you are God.

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It’s hard to say exactly when human beings first appeared on the Earth but science tells us the anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens, appeared between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago.

Before that, there were other human-like predecessors.

The universe could be on the order of nearly 14 billion years old…give or take a billion.

God, the Source of All, is quite creative and seems to have lots of patience!

As for each of us, we are here but a blink of the eye.

As the writer of today’s psalm states, “Seventy is the sum of our years, or eighty, if we are strong; Most of them are toil and sorrow; they pass quickly, and we are gone” (Psalm 90:10).

Each of us gets a very short time on the stage of life before the curtain falls.

As the psalmist also states: “Teach us to count our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart” (Psalm 90:12).

Why are we here?

Jesus said the most important commandments were to love God with all your heart, soul and mind and then to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36-39).

It would seem our sole purpose on this planet is to love everyone.

How are we doing with that?

When we do love all, we take part in God’s great unfolding, creative, evolving plan that Jesus called the “kingdom of God.”

As a friend once told me: “Just do the next loving thing.”

It’s that simple, and that hard.

It’s the key to changing the world.

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Listen to the song of the day “Let It Be Done to Me” on the Mercy Reigns album by clicking HERE.

Stream and/or purchase my songs on Amazon Music by clicking HERE.

Purchase my book “Mercy Reigns: A Daily Devotional of Compassion, Comfort and Healing on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Remember: God loves you!

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Christ Is Crying Out

Posted on June 1, 2020 by billtonnis
Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Systemic racism needs to be eradicated.

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Listen to my song “You’ll Lead Me” by clicking HERE or purchase HERE. Thank you!

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John 19:25

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala.

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Looking at today’s gospel reading, the line above is what struck me.

As Jesus slowly suffocated on the cross, can you imagine the sorrow and pain that these women felt as they watched?

The indignity and injustice of it all!

Can you, for a moment, put yourself in the shoes of the mother and family of George Floyd who watched the video of him being suffocated under the knee of a police officer as he lay face down on a Minneapolis street with his hands cuffed behind his back?

Can you imagine their pain, outrage and frustration?

If you are a person of color, you no doubt can.

You and others of color have been victimized many times before in unjust and brutal ways.

If you are white like me, you might be for the first time coming to terms with the systemic racism that has been victimizing people of color for hundreds of years.

Jesus looked down from the cross at those who murdered him and asked God to forgive them because “they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

We, too, must find it in our hearts to forgive injustices – but we also must have justice.

We absolutely must listen to our brothers and sisters of color and be willing to make major changes.

Too many white people sit complacently in their positions of privilege and power seemingly not knowing what they do.

Wake up!

Jesus said that whatever you did to the least of these, you did to him.

Jesus has been brutalized over and over inside the skins of George Floyd and countless other people of color.

Where are the voices of Christian leaders?

We are all accountable to make changes.

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Listen to the song of the day “You’ll Lead Me” on the Listen to Your Heart album by clicking HERE.

Stream and/or purchase my songs on Amazon Music by clicking HERE.

Purchase my book “Mercy Reigns: A Daily Devotional of Compassion, Comfort and Healing” on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Remember: God loves you!

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Liminal Space

Posted on May 28, 2020 by billtonnis
Image by enriquelopezgarre from Pixabay 

In order to grow, we must be willing to let go and be changed.

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Listen to my song “Changed” on YouTube by clicking HERE. Purchase HERE. Thank you!

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Psalm 16:1

Keep me safe, O God; in you I take refuge.

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We all want security – to be “safe.”

But there really is no certain physical security.

This need for security is based on fear.

Probably at its very core, the fear is of dying.

Our culture refuses to acknowledge death.

It’s the elephant in the room.

No one talks about it.

The bottom line is: none of us gets out of here alive!

Not a one.

You’d think that Christian leaders would have done a better job teaching what Jesus was demonstrating: the kenotic path.

St. Paul said that Jesus emptied himself (Philippians 2:7).

Jesus said, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).

What he meant was that you must let go of your ego-generated self so that your life in Christ, your true self, your real life, can emerge.

You have to die before you die!

This is the whole point of the Christian journey.

If we practiced this, we would be quite adept at dying by the time physical death comes.

(One good practice is some form of meditation which for me is Centering Prayer.)

These “little deaths” throughout life are all transitions, times when we must allow the old to go so the new can start.

They are new births, times of transformation.

When we let go and settle into the now, the liminal space between the end and the beginning, we find that we are quite safe in the total acceptance and unconditional love of the One who is, who was, and who will be.

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Listen to the song of the day “Changed” on the Give Praise and Thanks album by clicking HERE.

Stream and/or purchase my songs on Amazon Music by clicking HERE.

Purchase my book “Mercy Reigns: A Daily Devotional of Compassion, Comfort and Healing on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Remember: God Loves you!

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Solidarity

Posted on May 27, 2020 by billtonnis
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

“Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.” – Jesus

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Listen to my song “Mercy Reigns” on YouTube by clicking HERE. Purchase HERE. Thank you!

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Acts 20:35

“In every way I have shown you that by hard work of that sort we must help the weak, and keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus who himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

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You’d be hard-pressed to find many people preaching these words of St. Paul today.

This is not a popular philosophy of today’s world – to work hard to help the weak because it’s more blessed to give than to receive.

Nope.

Maybe you might hear a mother telling her little boy or girl this piece of advice.

But when those kids grow-up they will be very much indoctrinated by a culture with a very different message about the so-called “American Dream” which espouses the idea that you can have prosperity and personal success through hard work.

Not that there’s anything wrong with working hard and being rewarded.

But that’s not the message of Jesus nor of St. Paul.

They are more concerned with downward mobility, joining with the poor and disenfranchised in order to help them.

This is the Christian way.

It was why Jesus could implore God on behalf of his followers, “Keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one.” John 17:11 

Just as Jesus and God are one, so are we.

There is a Sacred Unity of all things.

This is why Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as though they were us because in a very divine sense…they are us.

Jesus was united in a Love that included everything and everyone.

We are called to do the same.

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Listen to the song of the day “Mercy Reigns” on the Mercy Reigns album by clicking HERE.

Stream and/or purchase my songs on Amazon Music by clicking HERE.

Purchase my book “Mercy Reigns: A Daily Devotional of Compassion, Comfort and Healing on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Remember: God loves you!

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Called and Sent

Posted on May 26, 2020 by billtonnis
Image by ling520 from Pixabay 

Divine Love is free and abundant like sunshine on a clear day.

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Listen to my song “May I Be Light” by clicking HERE.

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Acts 20:24

“Yet I consider life of no importance to me, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to bear witness to the gospel of grace.”

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St. Paul was all in.

He was of one heart and mind in pursuit of doing God’s work.

He was fully convinced that Jesus himself had shown him the work to do.

It was his ministry.

And what was Paul’s ministry?

“To bear witness to the gospel of grace.”

And what is the gospel of grace?

It is the good news of God’s unmerited and unconditional love and mercy for all people and all creation.

Grace people!

It’s Grace.

Each of us is loved eternally and unconditionally.

The news can’t be any better than that!

Each of us is also entrusted with the ministry of bearing witness to the gospel of grace.

Allow the truth of God’s eternal love to warm and inspire you.

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Listen to the song of the day “May I Be Light” on the Listen to Your Heart album by clicking HERE.

Stream and/or purchase my songs on Amazon Music by clicking HERE.

Purchase my book “Mercy Reigns: A Daily Devotional of Compassion, Comfort and Healing” on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Remember: God loves you!

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