What’s holding you back?

As we work at building up our faith and our personal connection to Christmas, we need a better understanding of our calling to give birth to Christ in partnership with Mary and the Holy Spirit. We need to get more in touch with how and why we can succeed at spreading the Good News more fully into the world, which so desperately needs him. For this purpose, we can use today’s first reading to uncover what’s still holding us back:

1. How is your life like a desert, dry and lifeless except for a few prickly cactuses? 

2.Are you thirsty for more of God? In what area of your life do you feel parched?

3. Are you feeble in your attempts to become a better evangelizer? 

4.Are your knees weak as your travel the difficult road of holy living?

5. Are you controlled and paralyzed by fear? Any fear — even the smallest one — paralyzes us from moving ahead into the success that awaits us. 6.How are you blind? Are you unable to recognize the talents, knowledge and wisdom you have that God wants you to use for taking Christ to others? 

7.What has God been telling you that you can’t hear? Maybe it’s his guidance? Or his love song that he sings to you? Or his dreams for you? 8.What part of giving Christ to others is too difficult for you? What lame excuses are you using to sit down and do nothing? 

9.How has fear kept your tongue silent when you could be sharing a story about your faith life? Or what have you been saying that’s so unlike Jesus that you give a bad impression of who Jesus really is? 

10.In what areas of your life are the jackals who tempt you still lurking, keeping you from being a good witness of what Jesus is really like? 

11.In what ways do you act foolishly? What the world considers wise the Lord knows to be foolish. What worldly wisdom is holding you back from imitating Jesus? 

12.How are you like a lion? Is there anyone you’ve been devouring with unkind words or impatience or contempt or bullying instead of giving them the unconditional love of Jesus? 

Well, the Good News is, as Isaiah points out: The Lord has ransomed us! Today’s Gospel reading reveals that Jesus was overflowing with God’s power so that he could minister to people. He wants to minister to you, too. We all need this help to fulfill our calling as evangelizers. It’s Jesus who strengthens the hands that are feeble and the knees that are weak. We are like the paralytic who allowed his friends to lower him to Jesus for a healing. By humbling ourselves and allowing Christian friends to help us, we reach the power of Christ. And then he says to us, “My friend, your sins are forgiven.” With that Word, we are healed. With that Word, all the good things that Isaiah prophesied are becoming true for us.

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Seven Characteristics of Mercy

“The wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy.” James 3:17 (NLT) Mercy is like a diamond; it is multifaceted. Today we’re going to look at seven facets of mercy. And I guarantee that learning how to be an agent of mercy will transform your relationships. 1. Mercy means being patient with people’s quirks. The Bible says in James 3:17, “The wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy” (NLT). The wiser you become, the more patient and merciful you become. 2. Mercy means helping anyone around you who is hurting. You cannot love your neighbor as yourself without being merciful. Proverbs 3:27 says, “Whenever you possibly can, do good to those who need it” (GNT). 3. Mercy means giving people a second chance. When somebody hurts you, you normally want to get even or write that person off. But the Bible says, “Stop being bitter and angry and mad at others . . . Instead, be kind and merciful, and forgive others, just as God forgave you because of Christ” (Ephesians 4:31-32 CEV). 4. Mercy means doing good to those who hurt you. Mercy is giving people what they need, not what they deserve. Why should you do that? Because that’s what God does with you: “Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back . . . Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:35-36 NIV). 5. Mercy means being kind to those who offend you. You need to be more interested in winning people to Christ than in winning an argument. Jude 1:23 says, “Show mercy to others, even though you are afraid that you might be stained by their sinful lives” (GW). 6. Mercy means building bridges of love to the unpopular. This is what I call premeditated mercy, because you intentionally build friendships with people who don’t have friends or who are not accepted at work or in society. When the Pharisees questioned why Jesus ate with tax collectors and other unpopular people, Jesus said, “‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’ For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners” (Matthew 9:13 NLT). 7. Mercy means valuing relationships over rules. Romans 13:10 says, “Love fulfills the requirements of God’s law” (NLT). If you want to show mercy, put people before policies. Put their needs before procedures. Put relationships before regulations. Choose love over law.