Behold the Lamb of God

In today's first reading, i John 3: 7-10, St. John says to us: "Children, let no one deceive you. The person who acts in righteousness is righteous, just as he [Jesus] is righteous. Whoever sins belongs to the Devil, because the Devil has sinned from the beginning. Indeed, the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the Devil. No one who is begotten by God commits sin, because God's seed remains in him [her]; he [she] cannot sin because he [she] is begotten by God.  In this way the children of God and the children of the Devil are made plain; no one who fails to act in righteousness belongs to God, nor anyone who does not love his brother [sister]."

The questions that I need to ask myself are:

Am I allowing myself to be deceived?
Am I attempting to deceive myself or others by my words or actions or by my silence or failure to act?
Am I acting righteously, as Jesus is righteous? Or am I unjust/unfair in how I relate to people?
To whom do I belong?

This last question is a hard one but one that I need to consider!   When I involve myself in sinful behaviors and attitudes, I am not acting as a child of God but as a child of Satan, as were Adam and Eve in the act of original sin!  Thank God that Jesus has been sent into this world "to destroy the works of the Devil."  For those who cling to Jesus and who return to Jesus in humility and repentance following a sinful act, "the works of the Devil" are destroyed in them. Unfortunately, there are times when we are deaf and blind to our sinfulness and need prayers that we will grow in our awareness of when we have closed our ears and our eyes to sin at work within us. And that is why St. John the Baptist, in today's Gospel,  John 1: 35-42, says to us: "Behold, the Lamb of God."  May we, like the disciples who heard John, follow Jesus and stay with Him as our Savior, ass they did!