O God, with your judgment endow the king,
and with your justice, the king’s son;
He shall govern your people with justice
and your afflicted ones with judgment. (Ps 72:1-2)
Christmas has been about gifts: giving gifts, receiving gifts, and speaking about Jesus as a gift. Gifts are wonderful things. I do not know too many people who do not want to receive a gift or two from time to time.
However, there is more to our lives than gifts. There is also this thing called responsibility. We are going to be judged at the end of our days. If we want to have any chance of living with God for eternity, we have to prepare for our judgment.
The best way to prepare, of course, is to live the Ten Commandments. They are, after all, more than something that we need to memorize. They are more than ten lines on a page. They have great meaning and a myriad of interpretations and applications. If we are going to live properly, we must be able to understand the meaning of the commandments and adhere to them as deeply as possible.
When we look at this academically, it makes sense and we say to ourselves, “Naturally.” However, the world in which we live is doing everything it can to encourage us to ignore the commandments. It wants us to forget that we have a responsibility to ourselves and others. It wants us to forget about the Lord. The world wants us to live, not for the Lord but, for ourselves.
That is why we need to be endowed with right judgment. We need to be able to discern the Lord calling us as well as to discern how the enemy is working against us.
We have a serious responsibility to the Lord, to others, and to ourselves. Are we willing to shoulder that responsibility today?
FAITH ACTION: What commandments of the Lord do you have a hard time keeping? Ask God for the grace that you need to be more faithful.