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The Acceptable Year of the Lord - HG Bishop Youssef

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

The acceptable year of the Lord is the era of our Lord Jesus Christ in which He came to reconcile us with God the Father, to redeem us, to die on the Cross to save us, to rise from the dead in order to abolish the power of death: the year of the New Covenant

How do we make the upcoming year an acceptable year before God?

  1. Abide in Christ
    • Know that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only Being accepted before God the Father
    • The Father testified about the Son twice (Baptism, Transfiguration) - "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased"
      • He is the only One that is Holy
      • He is the only One that is separated from sin - in whom is no guile or deceit
      • He is the only One that obeyed the Father even until death
      • He is the only One who satisfied the whole Law
    • God, in His love, gave privilege to all of us who are sinners and rejected because of our sin and disobedience - that if you accept Christ and abide in Him, then you will be accepted before the Father
      • "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name" (John 1:12)
    • The Lord 
      • Prayed, so that when we pray, our prayers will be accepted before the Father through the Son
      • Fasted, so that when we fast, our fasting will be accepted before the Father through the Son
      • Did charitable deeds, so that when we do likewise, we will be accepted before the Father
    • "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation" (2 Cor 5:17) from the Pauline Epistle of the day
      • "[God the Father] has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation" (2 Cor 5:18-19)
    • You must be abiding in Christ, to be accepted before God the Father

  2. Obey the Commandment
    • What separates me from the Lord Jesus Christ?
      • Disobeying the commandment of God
      • Drift away from the commandment of God
      • Follow our own will and not the will of the Father
    • What is the Commandment of God?
      • Love the Lord your God
      • Love your neighbor as yourself
      • "He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes" (1 John 2:10-11) from the Catholic Epistle of the day

  3. Do Charitable Deeds
    • Merciful and charitable deeds even with our enemies
      • See the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10
      • "For I desire mercy and not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6)
      • Merciful acts are considered an acceptable sacrifice before the Lord
  4. Don't touch that which is unclean
    • 2 Corinthians 6:14-18
    • Do not participate in the works of darkness
    • We, as children of God, are separate from the rest of the world. We are called out (ⲉⲕⲕⲗⲏⲥⲓⲁ) from the rest of the world
    • "For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were tehre spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing" (Acts 17:21) from the Praxis of the day
      • Athenians would spend their day hearing new things and doing them if they like, or rejecting them if not
      • Instead of keeping themselves separate from the world and listening to the Word of God that can transform them, they spent their time looking for what's new and imitating the children of the worlds

The Church is telling you - if you want to have this year be an acceptable year before the Lord, then you must abide in the Lord Jesus Christ, walk in His commandment (Love), be merciful and perform charitable deeds, and refrain from the unclean things of this world.

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