Key 20: Receive his righteousness
Justification is at the same time the acceptance of God’s righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ (CCC 1991). Our justification [receiving God’s righteousness] comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God. (CCC 1996)
Remember what Jesus wants you to seek first? The kingdom and…
HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS! (Matthew 6:33)
Adam and Eve ate from the tree in the Garden. They were lied to by the devil. They were told they had to “do something” (eat of the tree) to get something that God already gave them.
They believed the lie of self-righteousness. Saints Peter and Paul refer to this as the stumbling stone.
It is the biggest lie that causes all lies about God and His Goodness. Lies about God’s goodness are the cause of all sin according to the Church. Read CCC 397.
God wants to forgive you, save you and make you holy FREELY without your earning, deserving or working for it. It’s the only way you can become a child of God. Children don’t create themselves… they are born into the world through their parents.
And children resemble their parents!
Justification (receiving His righteousness) detaches you from sin… and purifies your heart of sin. It reconciles you with God. It frees you from the enslavement to sin, and it heals. (CCC 1990)
But to the one who without works, trusts Him… such faith is reckoned as righteousness. (Romans 4:5)
The Eucharist is a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father… for all his benefits, for all he has accomplished… (CCC 1360)
This is your challenge: that you see your time in Mass as purely thanksigiving and praise for what God has already done for you when you believed. Otherwise it becomes a law devoid of grace…
I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through law, then Christ died for nothing. (Galatians 2:21)
This is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because [they] neither see Him, or know Him. (John 14:17)