Delivered by Nia from the Parish of Good Shepherd in the Diocese of Surabaya, Indonesia. 1 Timothy 1: 1-2.12-14; Rs psalm 16: 1.2a.5.7-8.11; Luke 6: 39-42.

THE MOST IMPORTANT TREASURE

Our meditation today is entitled: TheMost Important Treasure. When we understand the most beautiful treasure, suchas gold or diamond, we can immediately compare it to treasures of lesser value.There are so many of them. If we possess that most beautiful and expensivetreasure, we would likely not desire other lesser treasures.

Gold is a symbol of supreme value andfitting to be placed on the same thought when we think about the glory of God.The purpose of today's theme of our reflection is that all of the past, wrappedin sin, are to be removed, as Saint Paul says in his letter to Timothy. His oldlife as a blasphemer and traitor of faith, totally left behind. By receivingGod's grace, he gains the most important treasure, namely Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the golden of theglory of God who enters our lives. Like Saint Paul, by throwing away all thatis old, nothing lost that we would experience. On the contrary, we obtain gold,our very valuable treasure. Jesus is so firm and constantly says that ifsomeone who does not let go everything, including those he loves most even tohimself, he is not worthy of being His disciple.

The firmness of Jesus means that aperson who decides to follow Him, he should make God the first and foremostBeing to be honoured and loved. Gold must remain as gold and should not beexchanged or mixed with anything other than that. God must remain the one andholy God, He must not be lower than number one or replaced with another. Whenwe put God in His true position, as well as we in ours, we actually obey thetruth of our faith.

In this line, the sin that we mustavoid in our lives is hypocrisy. The characteristic of hypocrisy in this worldcan be seen in those who claim themselves of knowing everything. Or someone whohas tendency to make himself a self-righteous person and ignoring others.Basically every human being has his or her own weaknesses, beside the qualitiesor strengths they have.

The most obvious consequence of thesin of hypocrisy is that the person does not have God as gold and the mostimportant treasure in his life. He only deals with hypocrisy in one thing toanother, wanting to win and satisfy himself from one opportunity to another.The focus is only on himself and he has no chance for God.

Let's pray. In the name of theFather ... Almighty Lord, through listening and understanding your word, may webecome your true witnesses in the world. Glory to the Father and to the Son andto the Holy Spirit ... In the name of the Father ...