Daily Gospel Reflection

Have You Been Saved?

Hi, I'm Matthew Kelly. Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where we are exploring the genius of Jesus, the genius of gospels, the genius of Catholicism, and each day looking for a word, a phrase, or an idea to anchor our day in the gospel. Let's listen to the gospel. You're looking for your word, your phrase, your idea, whatever the Holy Spirit gives you. Let's listen to the gospel and see how the Spirit leads us today. Today's reading is from the Gospel of John 8:31-42. "Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in Him, 'If you continue in My Word, you are truly My disciples. And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.' They answered Him, 'We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How is it that you say, "You will be made free?"'

"Jesus answered them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not continue in the house forever. The son continues forever. So, if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are descendants of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because My Word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with My father. And you do what you have heard from your father.' They answered Him, 'Abraham is our father.' And Jesus said to them, 'If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You do what your father did.' They said to Him, 'We are not born of fornication. We have one father, even God.'"

It's a fascinating reading. What jumped out at you? Two things jumped out at me. Jesus says in the beginning-- he says, "If you continue in My Word." A lot of modern Christianity has fallen into this idea of, "Are you saved? I've confessed Jesus is my Lord and Savior, so I'm saved." As if it's a one-time deal, as if it doesn't require a change of character, a change of values, a change of priorities. And of course, as Catholics, we absolutely do not believe that to be the case. And there's proof of this throughout the Scriptures. And we find proof of this here today. He says, "If you continue in My Word." He doesn't say, "If you start in My Word," because starting is easy. It's easy to say, "I love you." It's hard to live that out every day. The other thing that strikes me today is of, I think, massive cultural relevance. And that is, Jesus says, "And the truth will make you free." We, of course, hear this at different times throughout the gospels. "The truth will set you free," or in this case, "The truth will make you free. We live in a culture that doesn't believe in truth. We saw this really a prominent emergence of relativism in the 1960s in the United States and around the world. That relativism has been gathering speed over the past 60, 65 years.

And of course, now we're in a full-blown relativist state when it comes to culture. We live in a culture that does not believe in truth. We live in a culture that says, "Well, your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth." And that, of course, is a culture of slaves, because that isn't truth at all. That's opinion. That's personal preference. That could be bias and prejudice and all kinds of depravity. People could say, "Well, that's my truth." Well, no, that's depravity. "Well, yeah, but it's my truth." So obviously, that's insanity. And a culture without truth is a culture, as Jesus says, not what I say, is a culture of slaves.

And so Jesus says, "If you continue in the Word, then you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth--" Our culture doesn't know the truth. Our culture doesn't want to know the truth, "--and the truth will make you free." And so we're living in a culture of slaves. I think it's important that we understand we're living in a culture of slaves. I think it's important that we understand there is ultimate truth. There is objective and absolute truths, and we should make an effort to know what they are, to learn a little bit more each year about this matter, because this is one of the central battles that is taking place in our culture and will continue to take place in our culture over the next 50 years. Have a great day. Remember, don't just be yourself, be the very best version of yourself, all that God created you to be.