PERFORMANCE

Romans 7:18-25; Ps 119 Lord, teach me your statues; Luke 12:54-59

Every time I go to confession.  That's right you read correctly, priest go to confession.   Every time I go to confession to a particular priest, i don't go to the same priest every time, but this one priest whom i go to always brings up today's first reading and he will quote St. Paul,

"For I do not do the good I want, but I do  the evil I  do not want."

How many of can relate to this passage?

There seems to be a nice big gap between proposal and performance, motivation and maturity into action.

How do we overcome the gap that we experience daily in our life.

I wish it would be as easy as it is in  vehicles.  In cars if you want better performance, that is if yo want the car to do what you want it to do then you simply change things: you change its oil, you change its fuel, you change its tires, you change its spark plugs  and so on and so forth.

You continually tweak the engine though never twerking while tweaking that would be inappropriate.

But how do we increase our performance?

As St. Paul points out, "sin dwells in me. And when I want to do right, evil is at hand...For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive."

Okay we get.  We can all relate.  We understand.  What's the solution.  How do we close the gap between proposal and performance, motivation and mature action?

Paul is speaking of the inadequacies of human resolution.  To resolve to do a thing and to do it are different.  There is a weakness in our will.  think of St. Peter who made a great resolution to Christ, "even if i must die with you, I will not deny you (My 26:35)."

The human will is weak and prone to crack .

So what is the solution, please!

"Thanks be to God through JEsus Christ our lord."

Jesus is the solution.  He is the one who crucified the human flesh with its desires so that it might be filed with His life giving spirit.

It is true, that each morning we need to invite Jesus into our life and heart and give him the reigns and let him lead.    Each Morning ad through out the day we need to invite the Holy Spirit to strengthen us.

But lets face it, we forget.  We start out asking Christ to take over and then we get side tracked.  We start to live on our own, trusting our own will or the strength of our own back rather than relying on his strength.

This is the solution that we must carry through all the days of our life: "Come Lord Jesus strengthen me a new, set my heart on fire, fill me with your heavenly dew."