Our blessings come when we are able to discern the physical forces which challenge our faith from the spiritual forces of God which keeps us reconciled to Christ, that we may be able to know and understand what things we ought to do and have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them (BCP 231). To hear the message of the Gospel and believe in it, is the key to unlocking the manifestation of God’s love within us, which was given before the foundation of the world as we understand it. Otherwise we like Herod stay bound to a state of our humanity (pride, selfishness, idolatry etc.) that is in opposition to God’s will and the riches of his grace. Let us not forget Paul’s letter to the Ephesians that encourages our choice to walk in his love by faith as having obtained the inheritance of God’s glory. For by it we learn to concern our selves and respond by what God sees in us as beloved offspring and not by the judgment of others.

Ephesians 1:3-14  In him… when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.