OUR RELATIONS WITH GOD

   OUR RELATIONS WITH GOD

     “God is the Lord and has revealed himself to us, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” The Jewish people were once the people of God or the people who knew the true God and worshiped Him in spirit and truth. But when He came down as the Son and Logos and was born as a male child from the Ever-virgin Mary, the Jews ended up by rejecting Him completely and worked against Him.  They supported the wicked rulers when they decided to kill Him by nailing Him to the Cross, and enthusiastically agreed., crting: Let Him be cricified! They lost the greatest treasure that can ever be known to man and in doing this they condemned themselves to eternal perdition.

     Jesus Christ is the Son and divine Logos of God and therefore He is God and man. When Jesus opens His mouth and speaks, every word is directly from God the Father for He is one with the Father. Jesus said: “I am the light of the world, he who follows me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life (John 8:12).

     When the Jews committed Christ to the Cross, although some did accept Him, the majority did not want him, crying for his death. No man spoke like this man, declared many. Indeed!  Jesus had said: “I am the bread that came down from heaven! He spoke as our Creator and God to us humans, and He spoke with complete authority and extreme love for man. We must remember that Love of the Creator for His humble creatures cannot be neglected without consideration.

     But are not we Orthodox Christians treating Christ with similar disrespect as the Jews who thereby committed their bodies and souls to eternal suffering? Christ did not just speak a few words, He taught a complete change in our way of life. “Depart from evil and do good.” He taught is that the kingdom of God was more important than all food and drink, more important than wife and children, than life or death! We need to train ourselves to completely love God who is good even more than we love anyone or anything else. Our present life may end sooner than we think and we will be judged for what we have believed and what we have done. Today is the day of repentance and prayer to God for tomorrow may be too late!

     In this world we get so used to catering to our body and its desires that we can think of nothing else, and for people who have no faith or hope in the future life, this is their way of live.  We however, if we desire eternal life need to prepare for the future while we are still in this world, for there is no way to change after death removes us from this life bringing us to the terrible judgment. The most important thing is that Jesus Christ teaches us all through the Scripture what we should do, but if we do not habitually read the Bible every day, how can we become informed. Scriptures are filled with life and without them we are dead to spiritual life and to God, who speaks to us through Scripture.

     Our faith is not a small thing but is extremely important, for it leads us to truth and life. Christ is the Truth who came down from heaven and Christ is the Life of the world!  Physical life alone is not the real life, for real life is spiritual by nature and involves our communion with the Lord, with fer and love. Communion with the Lord will grow stronger by doing and increasing our faith.

     Everything we do in life becomes habitual and we must develop habits that are good as we eliminate those which are bad, for bad habits corrupt our souls. We must think of God as much as we can and whenever we can with thanksgiving and offering our love in return.. To accomplish this, we can start with the sign of the Cross, making it over our beds and on ourselves when we lie down to sleep and again over our beds and ourselves when we arise. Then before showering we can make it again and repeat this after showering. When we sit down to eat, we should be moderate and not eat as a glutton, but make the sign of the Cross over our food and drink. 

     We must develop these excellent habits, remembering each time that Jesus Christ so loved us  that He suffered on the Cross even to death, and to His great honor and glory, He arose on the third day never to die again, and it is this same life that He gives us through the divine mysteries. God should become more habitual to our minds and hearts than anything else in this word. Amen.