We should explain the problem of God’s will because even if God has one will, this will is expressed towards us in many ways – which is why many people say that God has ‘many wills’ – ‘wills’ which can be grouped into four main categories:
After fulfilling a commandment expect to be tempted: for love of Christ is tested by adversity. So, never belittle the significance of your thoughts, for not one escapes God’s notice.
Everyone has a cross to carry. Why? Since the leader of our faith endured the cross, we will also endure it.
A person cannot choose the time in which he is born or lives; it is not up to him, who his parents are, or the nation he will be born into, but what he is responsible for is how he will act in that given time: will he be human or inhuman, no matter his nationality nor parents.
Because death is such an important moment in our life, our perfect God doesn’t leave unused any possibility of improvement for the one who is about to die and for anyone else who could be affected by that person’s death. However, here intervines our human freedom which can spoil things badly. But, if we do what we can – which is almost nothing – God will do what He can, which is everything. Don’t you believe?
How can we put up with these things unless it is because we have no true love? If we have true love with sympathy and patient labor, we shall not go about scrutinizing our neighbor’s shortcomings.
What thoughts we should confess? This question appears again and again. Here is a simple way to look at it:
Forgetfulness in and of itself has no power, but acquires embodiment in proportion to our negligence.
If God sees that the intellect has entirely submitted to Him and puts its hope in Him alone, He strengthens it, saying: ‘Have no fear Jacob my son, my little Israel’ (Isa. 41:14), and: ‘Have no fear: for I have delivered you, I have called you by My name; you are Mine. If you pass through water, I shall be with you, and the rivers will not drown you. If you go through fire, you will not be burnt, and the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, who saves […]
The whole planet wants the freedom of eternal happiness, but most people seek it where it is not and seek it in an inappropriate way.
First of all we should mention that our illnesses are a result of Adam’s fall. In paradise there were no illnesses. So, demonic energy is more or less involved in various degrees and because of various causes and for various purposes: to pay off for a particular sin, to stop someone from a wrong path or for one to receive a higher degree of spiritual knowledge etc.
Any addiction is a bad habit, an illness of the soul, a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, in the causes of sin, despite the adverse consequences.
After giving the wronged person the good advice, Saint Paul goes on to give him advice of a higher tone, telling him not to be overcome with evil but overcome evil with good. For he knew that even if the enemy was a brute he would not go on being an enemy once he was fed.
Don’t set any store by your thoughts, whether they tell you’re terrible, or when they tell you that you’re a saint.
God made us in His image and likeness—that is, just a single created god—a single Human in many persons of two kinds (man and woman), as He is a single God in three persons. God created a giant mind, a created god, in which all persons would cooperate flawlessly through their minds in real time to accomplish the same goal, even if each person would keep his specificity.
Saint Paul says “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
Few words, much love. To all. No matter who they are because every one of us is ‘sent’, every one of us is created with a purpose, every one of us is unique in his own way.
It’s not that God overrode Pharaoh’s free will; that is, it isn’t that Pharaoh was inclined to let the Israelites go but then God stopped him from doing so. It’s that Pharaoh was not inclined to let the Israelites go, but the miracles worked by God through Moses made him timid; God gave Pharaoh the strength of will to follow through on what he really wanted to do: keep the Israelites enslaved in Egypt. In that sense, God didn’t suspend or override Pharaoh’s free will; actually, God enhanced it, so Pharaoh could make the choice that was in his heart.
But someone might say, “Then, if heaven is so great, why don’t you all just go and kill yourselves, and pass over to your God right away, and not bother us anymore?”
There are some people who impress us more and help us more than others do, even if they say almost the same things as the others.
If someone is not under obedience to you, do not rebuke him to his face for his faults. For that would imply you have authority over him, and are not just giving advice.
Someone who wanted to do evil, prayed Someone wanted to do evil, but first prayed as usual; and finding himself prevented by God, he was then extremely thankful.
In the Christian context: by “mystery,” we do not mean merely that which is baffling and mysterious, an enigma or insoluble problem.
One of the biggest noblemen from Gaza asked Saint Zosimas, “How can you say that you are nothing? You make miracles, you heal people, you are a saint!”
There are two basic ways of a cure. The first is for a person to abandon “wealth” of the mind. In speaking of poverty, Saint Niketas Stethatos maintains that poverty is not only the renunciation of material goods, but is also the denial of the “wealth” of the mind.
Sin is distorted pleasure, so we need pain analogous with the severity of sin in order to re-establish an equilibrium, according to spiritual law.
The Mother of God died, as all people die by the necessity of their mortal human nature which is indivisibly bound up with the corruption of this world as the result of Adam’s fall.
Cain, where’s your brother? With this began the history of the human race on earth, namely with a brother’s murder. A murder of a brother in your life!
There are three ways that we can please God:
Father Seraphim Rose of Platina, himself a convert to Orthodoxy, was once asked to compose a “Manual for Orthodox Converts”. In his notes for such a manual, he jotted down the following “convert pitfalls”, or what he called “obstacles in the Orthodox mission today” – or, shortly, “convertitis”. Based on these notes we have:
