Tuesday GIFTS of Advent

January 6, 2026

“Fear of the Lord”

John tells us today it is all about Love! Fitting scripture for our exploration of the final Gift of the Holy Spirit leveraged by God to sanctify each of us: The Fear of the Lord.

The seventh and final Gift of the Holy Spirit is the Fear of the Lord, and perhaps no other Gift of the Holy Spirit is so misunderstood.

We think of fear and hope as opposites, but the Fear of the Lord confirms the theological virtue of hope. This Gift of the Holy Spirit gives us the desire not to offend God, as well as the certainty that God will supply us the grace that we need in order to keep from offending Him.

Our desire to not offend God is more than simply a sense of duty; like Piety, the Fear of the Lord arises from a place of love. Because of our love for God offending God is what we are blessed to fear, not God nor any action on His part toward us.

Over these past Tuesdays of Advent and Christmas we have explored the Holy Spirit’s Seven Gifts embedded within our hearts at our baptism. Taken together the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit are God’s present to each of us so as to transform us more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ.

Through these gifts, when we in our freedom say “yes” to them, we become able to desire the contemplation of God over everything. Grasping what we contemplate, we are blessed with an insight into what God would have us do as well as the strength to do it. With the ability to see things as God sees them, we can then glean our purpose under God; a purpose we can then pursue because of a love-motivated worship of Him that we lovingly hope will be pleasing to Him.

Taken together a life that leverages these seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit will be holy.