Cultivating The Interior Life - An Exhortation To love

"Behold the Kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21)

Do you want to know true peace in your life? - A peace that is not dependant upon the circumstances around you? Do you wish to experience true joy? Do you long to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and to feel His presence within you? Do you want to know the Father's love and taste the Kingdom of God here on earth? Then you need to develop the interior life and meet with God within the temple of your own heart.

"Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit
dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16)

Our God is not a distant God locked away in the heavens, but a loving Father who's Spirit has come down to dwell within the hearts of those who love Him. You do not need to reach out to God to touch Him and embrace His Spirit - you need to reach within - within your own heart. God is waiting for you in the stillness of your heart, there He speaks to you, loves you, guides you, and transforms your nature into the likeness of His own - into the likeness of Christ!

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control." (Galatians 5: 22 & 23)

It is not difficult to find God within the soul, but we do need to look for Him with love, humility, faith, and patience. We need to have time alone and a place of solitude. We need to still the mind, putting away every anxiety. Then we shall meet with God, and through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we shall become one with our Father in Heaven. We must then cultivate the interior life until our love grows to such an extent that it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us. Only then will we be able to be the "light of the world" and share our joy with those around us. Our joy will be such that others will be able to see it within us, and the peace that we have will place those around us at ease and cause them to wonder how we possess such wonderful qualities.

"If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." (Galatians 5:25).

God is willing to come to us regardless of our past life. Jesus came to save sinners! We don't need to be saints to look for God and have a personal relationship with Him, but we do need to repent and change our lives. To have a close relationship with the Father we must confess our guilt and work towards a new life of virtue. Note that I said, "work towards" a new life, this is because we cannot become holy overnight, we cannot always undo all our old ways immediately, and God makes allowances for this. In fact, God will reveal our faults to us over a period of time, for if He were to reveal them to us all at once, for some of us, it would be too much to bear. So God allows us to see our true nature a little at a time. The important thing then is our good intent. We shall still make mistakes now and again, but God will always forgive us if we repent and stride forward into the new life that He is granting us. We must never let regrets or our faults cause us to sorrow, this will only slow down our progress in the spiritual life - repent and trust in God's mercy and move on! We must however, at the same time, empty our hearts of all that is opposed to God's grace once we come to recognise the sin. As we grow in the Spirit of Christ our thoughts and desires will change, the Holy Spirit will give us discernment and our lives will become more well-ordered and at peace. Our thoughts will become less earthly and more heavenly; they will become less impulsive and more reflective. We shall have greater wisdom to make the right choices in our lives as our conscience speaks out more clearly.