Am I Worthy to Walk with Jesus?

Am I enough? Do my past mistakes prevent me from living a life for Jesus? These are questions we may ask ourselves as we examine our conscience. Fr. Josh Jonson addresses these fears and emphasizes that we cannot let shame or past sin stand in our way of being with Jesus. Throughout Church history we hear about disciples and saints falling to sin but finding redemption. Jesus wants you. He is calling each one of us to follow Him.

Snippet from the Show

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

Shownotes


Glory Story (2:14)
Listener Question (6:25)

I feel called to be more of a leader in my parish. I have been studying Church teachings and learning so much and I love sharing what I’ve learned with others. My struggle is with unworthiness and shame. I am a single parent and my children have different fathers. I have never been married. I know it was wrong and I have gone to confession and received forgiveness. I know I have been forgiven but I still feel unworthy to be a leader and teacher because of my past. I’ve attended classes at my parish and share in those classes. Many of the other students tell me I should teach or do more evangelism but I can’t get over the feeling that I’m a fraud and not worthy to be a teacher. How do I overcome this?
-Anonymous

Prayer (18:20)

I Thirst For You, Mother Teresa 

It is true. I stand at the door of your heart, day and night. Even when you are not listening, even when you doubt it could be Me, I am there: waiting for even the smallest signal of your response, even the smallest suggestion of an invitation that will permit Me to enter.
I want you to know that each time you invite Me, I do come always, without fail. Silent and invisible I come, yet with a power and a love most infinite, bringing the many gifts of My Spirit. I come with My mercy, with My desire to forgive and heal you, with a love for you that goes beyond your comprehension.
A love in each detail, so grand like the love I have received from My Father “I have loved all of you as the Father has loved me…” (John 15:10).
I come longing to console you and give you strength, to lift you up and bind all your wounds. I bring you My light, to dispel your darkness and all your doubts. I come with My power, that allows me to carry you:
with My grace, to touch your heart and transform your life. I come with My peace, to calm your soul.
I know you like the palm of my hand. I know everything about you. Even the hairs of your head I have counted. Nothing in your life is unimportant to Me. I have followed you through the years and I have always loved you even when you have strayed. I know every one of your problems. I know your needs and your worries and yes,  I know all your sins.
But I tell you again that I love you, not for what you have or ceased to do, I love you for you, for the beauty and the dignity My Father gave you by creating you in His own image. It is a dignity you have often forgotten, a beauty you have tarnished by sin. But I love you as you are, and I have shed My Blood to rescue you. If you only ask Me with faith, My grace will touch all that needs changing in your life: I will give you the strength to free yourself from sin and from all its destructive power.
I know what is in your heart, I know your loneliness and all your wounds, the rejections, the judgments, the humiliations, I carried it all before you. And I carried it all for you, so you could share My strength and My victory. I know, above all, your need for love, how much you are thirsting for love and tenderness.  Yet, how many times have you desired to satisfy your thirst in vain, seeking that love with selfishness, trying to fill the void within you with passing pleasures, with the even greater emptiness of sin.
Do you thirst for love?
“Come to Me all you who thirst … ” (John 7:37). I will satisfy you and fill you.
Do you thirst to be loved?
I love you more than you can imagine … to the point of dying on a cross for you.
I THIRST FOR YOU. Yes, that is the only way to even begin to describe My love for youI THIRST FOR YOU. I thirst to love you and to be loved by you. So precious are you to Me that I THIRST FOR YOU.


Resources

Meet Fr. Josh Johnson

While Fr. Josh was raised Catholic, he didn’t like the Church growing up. Then, one day in adoration, he fell in love with Jesus and received the call to become a priest.

Now, Fr. Josh is the Vocations Director of the Diocese of Baton Rouge in Louisiana. He is a presenter in four of Ascension’s programs: Altaration, YOU: Life, Love, and the Theology of the Body, The 99, and Connected: Catholic Social Teaching for This Generation, as well as the author of Broken and Blessed: An Invitation to My Generation, Pocket Guide to Adoration, and co-author of Pocket Guide to Reconciliation.

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