Glory to you, O Christ,
proclaimed to the pagans;
glory to you, O Christ,
believed in by the world. 1TIM 3:16
1 JOHN 3:22-4:6
My Soul's Beloved,
You say to us this day, 'Ask, and you will receive.' This is Your promise and assurance to us; however, it is conditional on our keeping God's commandments. If I keep Your commandments, Beloved, all of which are encompassed in the two great commandments, “love the Lord thy God with all your heart” and “love your neighbour as yourself,” only then can I expect my prayers to be answered. A true disciple must be a reflection of the master in all things. This is a lifelong process and ends only when I draw my last breath.
It is hard to love as You love, Lord. To forget oneself. To pour oneself out as a libation as You did. You loved us to the end, through Your passion, crucifixion, and death on the cross. You paid the price for the sins of our first parents and every subsequent sin that followed from that first deliberate breaking away from God through disobedience.
The world teaches us to put ourselves and our needs first, but true joy, the kind of joy that the world cannot give, is to put the needs of others before my own. The lives of the saints, who imitated You closely, are a witness to this kind of authentic love of neighbor. The more closely I follow You, Lord, the more I will love You as You did. The closer I grow to You, the more I will become like You. And the more I become like You, the greater will be my witness to You in the world. Help me, Lord. Help me.
Whatever we ask God,
we shall receive,
because we keep his commandments
and live the kind of life that he wants.
His commandments are these:
that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ
and that we love one another
as he told us to.
Whoever keeps his commandments
lives in God and God lives in him.
We know that he lives in us
by the Spirit that he has given us.
It is not every spirit, my dear people, that you can trust;
test them, to see if they come from God,
there are many false prophets, now, in the world.
You can tell the spirits that come from God by this:
every spirit which acknowledges that Jesus the Christ has come in the flesh
is from God;
but any spirit which will not say this of Jesus
is not from God,
but is the spirit of Antichrist,
whose coming you were warned about.
Well, now he is here, in the world.
Children,
you have already overcome these false prophets,
because you are from God and you have in you
one who is greater than anyone in this world;
as for them, they are of the world,
and so they speak the language of the world
and the world listens to them.
But we are children of God,
and those who know God listen to us;
those who are not of God refuse to listen to us.
This is how we can tell
the spirit of truth from the spirit of falsehood.
PSALM 2:7-8,10-11
I will give you the nations for your heritage.
Whatever we ask God,
we shall receive,
because we keep his commandments
and live the kind of life that he wants.
His commandments are these:
that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ
and that we love one another
as he told us to.
Whoever keeps his commandments
lives in God and God lives in him.
We know that he lives in us
by the Spirit that he has given us.
It is not every spirit, my dear people, that you can trust;
test them, to see if they come from God,
there are many false prophets, now, in the world.
You can tell the spirits that come from God by this:
every spirit which acknowledges that Jesus the Christ has come in the flesh
is from God;
but any spirit which will not say this of Jesus
is not from God,
but is the spirit of Antichrist,
whose coming you were warned about.
Well, now he is here, in the world.
Children,
you have already overcome these false prophets,
because you are from God and you have in you
one who is greater than anyone in this world;
as for them, they are of the world,
and so they speak the language of the world
and the world listens to them.
But we are children of God,
and those who know God listen to us;
those who are not of God refuse to listen to us.
This is how we can tell
the spirit of truth from the spirit of falsehood.
PSALM 2:7-8,10-11
I will give you the nations for your heritage.
The Lord said to me: ‘You are my Son.
It is I who have begotten you this day.
Ask and I shall bequeath you the nations,
put the ends of the earth in your possession.’
Now, O kings, understand,
take warning, rulers of the earth;
serve the Lord with awe
and trembling, pay him your homage.
It is I who have begotten you this day.
Ask and I shall bequeath you the nations,
put the ends of the earth in your possession.’
Now, O kings, understand,
take warning, rulers of the earth;
serve the Lord with awe
and trembling, pay him your homage.
I will give you the nations for your heritage.
MATTHEW 4:12-17,23-25
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