Dear friend,
In the above Bible Reading the prophet Isaiah prophetically speaks for our Messiah – which means ‘Anointed One’ – and for our sake Jesus fulfilled the prophesy.
Please take time to sit during the day with your Bible in hand and pour over the Readings from the Third Sunday of Advent: Isaiah 61: 1-2a, 10-11, First Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians 5:16-24 and the Gospel according to John 1:6-8, 19-28
As we approach Christmas Day we continue to prepare ourselves for Christ’s birth to reflect on our past year and all it’s challenges. How simple our lives would be if we were to truly and faithfully trust in God, His love for us and how much He wants what is best for us. But God can only ask these things of us it is up to us to discipline our lives to make it all come about.
I didn’t always discipline my life by using God’s direction for my life, and even to this day I feel the consequences of some of my poor self-directed decisions – decisions made without asking or waiting on God for His direction. I feel like Adam and Eve who did not heed God’s direction but instead listened to Satan’s misleading advise and ate the ‘forbidden fruit’ and then tragically were cast out of Paradise. But God is a merciful and forgiving God and we need to understand that being in the state of righteousness puts us in good grace with God and gives us the power to overcome evil. “12 Therefore sin is not to reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the parts of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead, and your body’s parts as instruments of righteousness for God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under the Law but under grace. Romans 6: 12-14 That even under the Law of the Ten Commandments we are not protected from sinning but once we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior – through His righteousness – we are blessed with His grace to do good and avoid evil.
My friend, have peace in knowing that through God’s righteousness, we can be content in life and assured of His promise that after our final day on earth we will stand before God and have the glorious privilege of entering through the gates of Paradise.
Additional Bible Reading:
Isaiah 61: 10-11
I will rejoice greatly in the Lord,
My soul will be joyful in my God;
For He has clothed me with garments of salvation,
He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness,
As a groom puts on a turban,
And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the earth produces its sprouts,
And as a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up,
So the Lord [h]God will cause righteousness and praise
To spring up before all the nations.
Prayer for the week:
Dear God, We thank you for sending us your Son, Jesus Christ. Fill our hearts with the Holy Spirit that we may truly appreciate and understand all that Christ means to us that He is the true reason for this truly happy season. May our hearts be contently happy because we have the promise of His salvation which brings about our salvation. Help us to listen for your direction for our life. Thank you for your grace dear Father for *’The grace of the Holy Spirit has the power to justify us, that is, to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to us1a “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ”2 and through Baptism1b. *1a,b1987 Catechism of the Catholic Church, *2Romans 3:22
We ask this through your Son, our Messiah, Amen
Until next time, may God bless you and yours and may He keep you all safe!
BIG HUGS and many blessings to with you!
Sincerely yours in Christ Jesus,
Marie Antoinette
His Righteousness 