You hypocrites!
You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky;
why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
We have the capability to read certain signs and interpret what they will likely mean about the future. We do this in areas that matter to us the most, whether about weather, politics, or the economy. Because we are always trying to read the signs in this way we have less excuse when we don't pay attention to the more important spiritual signs of the times. Chief among these is the fact that Jesus the messiah has come, opening a time of repentance for the world. In Jesus God will one day judge the living and the dead. His presence among us is a sign that now is the time for us to respond. This is what Paul had in mind when he wrote:
Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (see Second Corinthians 6:2).
We prepare for future contingencies that we know may impact our lives in some way. If it isn't going to rain we may take steps ranging from watering the flowers to precautions in the event of drought. Depending on the condition of the economy we may buy, sell, or hold onto what we have. But, although we like to acknowledge what Jesus has already done for us, we are still often willing to forget about what he means for our future, the future of our loved ones, and the future of the world.
We are able to see the present time as a period of unique opportunity precisely to the degree that we understand how it relates to God's plan for the future. We prefer to forget that even we ourselves, let alone those who do not yet know Christ, are still in some measure "at war" within ourselves between the law of our minds and the law of sin. This is a sign we should understand as pointing toward our continued need for Jesus.
Who will deliver me from this mortal body?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
It is not probable that we will manage to completely free ourselves from sin during this mortal life. Because of this we are grateful for the fact we will be able to pay our remaining debt after, in purgatory. Yet it is clearly preferable to do so now, in freedom, out of love for the one who loved us first. Purgatory ought only to be a last resort. To imagine that we can put things off until then and depend on it entirely may actually be indifference, that, if it becomes to predominate, can render purgatory itself insufficient to rectify the deformity of sin within us.
Let us remember that our debt is not one we can truly repay. It is one that is settled with God on the basis of his mercy. But we must learn to increasingly depend on and live in response to this mercy if we do not want to be held accountable for what we would truly owe apart from it. It is not a call to struggle, so much as to surrender. It does not end in the hopeless of our frail mortality. It ends in thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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