The yield is what counts, Angels: Day 246

Last updated on: March 26, 2017 at 3:30 am by Pete Socks

The yield is what counts, Angels: Day 246 2017-03-19T10:45:27-05:00 Pete Socks

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St. Peter, says St. Augustine, denied Christ, stood in his way, and misunderstood the New Covenant—yet he will judge angels. What matters most to Christ is not the thistles we had to uproot from our souls, but the yield we give him once the gospel is planted.

We see the same thing in the Gospel, where the devils confess that Christ is the Son of God in the words used by Peter, but with a very different heart. So, though the words were the same, Peter is praised for his faith, while the impiety of the devils is stopped. For Christ, not by human sense, but by divine knowledge, could inspect and infallibly distinguish the sources from which the words came.

Besides, there are multitudes who confess that Christ is the Son of the living God, without meriting the same approval as Peter—not only of those who shall say in that day, “Lord, Lord,” and shall receive the sentence, “Depart from me,” but also of those who shall be placed on the right hand. They may probably never have denied Christ even once; they may never have opposed his suffering for our salvation; they may never have forced the Gentiles to follow Jewish law; and yet they will not be honored equally with Peter, who, though he did all these things, will sit on one of the twelve thrones, and judge not only the twelve tribes, but the angels. So, again, many who have never desired another man’s wife, or procured the death of the husband, as David did, will never reach the place which David nevertheless held in the divine favor.

There is a vast difference between what is in itself so undesirable that it must be utterly rejected, and the rich and plenteous harvest which may afterwards ap- pear. For farmers are best pleased with the fields from which, after they may have pulled out big thistles, they receive a hundredfold; not with fields which have never had any thistles, but hardly bear thirtyfold. –St. Augustine, Reply to Faustus the Manichean, 22.6c

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

When I confess that Christ is the Son of God, do I do it as Peter and the angels do, with love and awe? Or do I do it as the devils did, with cringing fear?

CLOSING PRAYER

Lord Jesus Christ, I confess that you are the Son of the living God, and I renounce the impiety of the devil and all his angels.

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