East6A23.  Acts of the Apostles 8:5-8, 14-17.    Philip reached out to convert the Samaritan Jews who had historically been treated as rejects (schismatic Jews) by the Jerusalem Jews.  His miraculous cures proved the authenticity of his call to accept Jesus as the Messiah; and so, many accepted conversion.  Peter and John completed the process of their conversion by laying hands on them so that they received the Holy Spirit.

John 14:15-21.  To accept Jesus as Messiah means to love him as he loves us, to embrace him as he embraces us.  However, the relationship is not as one equal to another, but as one who is finite and created to a God who is infinite and the Creator.The nature of this relationship demands that we be totally obedient and subservient to our God.  The way we ‘know’ the Spirit is a life in which we gradually come to live with him as the breathe and source of daily life for us.  Also Jesus, God the Son, becomes the source of life for us, since as he said, “because I live and you will live.” Christian life is not earthly, animal life but rather life in which we live in God and God in us.  “Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”  Life in Christ through the power of the Spirit is heavenly life on earth.

1 Peter 3:15-18.  “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.”  Have the loving Lord as the love of our lives.  He is the only one we must please.  We would like to pleaseothers only so to attract them to Jesus but that is not always possible.  That often means that certain people reject and even despise us.  Jesus was rejected by those blind to values greater than earthly ones.  To be heavenly bound may mean to find this world a difficult, even painful place to live.