Daily Meditation - First Saturday 5July 2008 - GOD'S DIVINE PURPOSE IS NOT JUDGEMENT - DONT LET SATAN DISCOURAGE YOU - its a lie!

[BarbaraTherese]

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Optional Memorial
Anthony Mary of Zaccaria

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Priest

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Mass Readings & Meditation
Readings
Meditation
Amos 9:11-15

Just what is going on here? If you’ve followed the Book of Amos, you’ve seen that it paints a dire picture of Israel’s future.

• It describes the terrible calamities the people would endure because of their sinfulness.
• So now we might wonder why the book ends on such a hopeful note.
• Many commentators believe that these verses were added later so that readers wouldn’t get too depressed.
• But whether the words are Amos’ or the work of a later prophet, they are true to everything we know about God.

*** His real purpose for us is***
*** not judgment ***
but restoration.

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Time and time again, the Bible tells us how God’s people had to face the consequences of their sin.

• But just as he did in Amos’ time, God always invited them to return to him.
• He exiled Adam and Eve from paradise but blessed their descendants.
• He destroyed the world in a flood
• —then sent a rainbow to show he would never do it again.

He never stopped loving Israel and using them in his plan to bring salvation to all mankind—and he’s still working out that plan today!

• How many times have you thought to yourself, “Nothing can change my situation! I’ve really messed up now!”
• But if these verses tell us anything, they tell us that God never gives up on us
• —so we should never give up on ourselves, or on him!

No matter how many times Satan tries to discourage us, we know he’s lying.

• We know that no sin is greater than the love Jesus poured out for us on the cross:
• “Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool” (Isaiah 1:18).

But that’s not all there is to it.

• What God promised to do for Israel
• is just what he promises to do for us!
• He doesn’t want to merely let us off the hook but to rebuild us.
• He wants to see us grow into our full stature as his children,
• so that we can give him glory
• and achieve the purpose he planned for us.

"Lord, help me to see more clearly the great hope to which you call me.

Give me the grace to follow you always
—even when I stumble and fall."

 

[mommyof4]

Thank you. I needed to hear this!

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Thank you. I needed to hear this!

…… I think probably we all need the reminder from time to time … it is not too often that sly and insidious Satan makes itself the obvious…rather it will use sly and insidious methods, wiles and ways…
Deo Gratius!