CURSED BE THE MAN 

WHO TRUSTS IN MAN

“Thus says the Lord: 

Cursed be the man who trusts in man,

and whose heart has departed from the Lord”

                                          (Jer. 17:5)

     When a man turns away from trusting the Lord in his heart, it will then become common that he places his confidence and trust in other men or in himself. But if he never placed his trust in God but always in other men or himself, the curse is applicable. We are endowed by the Lord with good intellects and have been given freedom to choose whatever we decide upon. This freedom places a great responsibility on us for our beliefs, actions and choices.. The Scripture says, “Cursed be the man who trusts in man.” Why? Peter heard our Lord say, Will you also go? as people were leaving Him because of His doctrine, Peter asked him. To whom else will we go? For there is no God but the one true God and Jesus Christ is true God and man. Our hearts belong to God and not to ourselves and it is God who endowed us with the ability to love. God should be our very first love for He gives us everything we have, and He desires that we turn to Him, but woe to us if our heart “has departed from the Lord.” There is nothing worse for man than to be under a curse, for its end is eternal death and suffering. All who reject Christ and deny Him obedience and love have placed themselves under a curse.

     To whom will we go? 

Our life is in God’s hands, He gave himself to crucifixion for our salvation.  He died and rose after three days. He sent us His Holy Spirit to comfort us and to remind us of His doctrine.  He created us with His own hands and breathed His own spirit into us, bestowing a portion of His divinity into our souls and bodies. God has indeed greatly honored us and has highly exalted us due to His generosity and perfect love, for He greatly respects and honors his own image, the  creature which  He formed with His own hands – man!

IN OUR PROSPERITY– WE FORGET GOD

IN OUR PROSPERITY– WE FORGET GOD

“I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said: I will not listen”                                                              (Jer. 22:21).

     Prosperity causes us to think that we need nothing else, and in having an abundance of goods. But usually what accompanies prosperity among most men, causes them to forget God, His Kingdom, His laws and death culminating with our final judgment. Today this is happening in Orthodoxy and in heresy, for churches and synagogues are becoming increasingly emptier.  When people forget the church they also forget God, and some just send out a check. The check is  appreciated and important but that alone will not soothe our consciences. God wants each one of us  to come to Him to obey Him and to love Him. personally. Even those who go to church and receive Holy Communion, should first offer themselves with all their lives with all their hearts. For twe mus worship God personally, and  love Him above everything and everybody for He is more than worthy of our love!

     The Scriptural words inscribed above were spoken by God to the Jewish people, but they profoundly also speak to Orthodox people today many of whom say to God: “I will not listen.” How do we listen to the words of God? Through the reading of Divine Scriptures (the Bible) and the hymnology of the Church, the Bishops and Priests also in the Divine Liturgy and other church services, and personally. In many churches the very  important Bishop’s voice fails to proclaim the true words of God and their meaning, nor do they remind the faithful to read the Bible daily.

     Prosperity causes the faithful to place God in the shadows which increases our separation from Him and in turn to live according to the spirit of this world and its immorality andf uncleanness. We are all sinners and when we know God we can have our sins forgiven and strive to avoid them in the future. But those who fail to go to church or holy confession remain in their sins and remain outside of Christian life. For we are not Christians if we do not read the Bible daily, go to church regularly, confess our sins, and conduct our entire life according to the commandments of Jesus Christ, then we cannot call ourselves Christians. If we are not Christians living according to His holy will, then we will live as pagans.

UNBELIEVERS AND IDOLATERS

“They will be put to shame who say to a stick: 

You are my father, and to a stone: You have given birth to me, 

for they have turned their back on Me and not their faces, 

but in time of trouble they will say: Arise and save us” 

(Jer. 2:26-7)

     In the present  time this Scripture reading really has meaning.  For many in the scientific communities strive to demonstrate that there is no Creator and God who made all creation and us. They defame man by claiming that man came from animals, from a sticks or stones. Others claim man came from mineral matters and will return to them again. They do not turn their faces toward heaven and  the true God who created heaven and earth with a specific purpose and gave mankind specific instructions of responsibility. Truly they shall be put to shame when troubles and they are compelled to call for help from God whom they rejected and made Him an object of mockery.

     It is not only science but a large part of humanity who daily eat food, drink water, breath air,  and they do not recognize or give thanks to God who with love supplies everything that man needs.  Day by day they rise up in the morning, go about their business with their many duties and pleasures, eat and drink and then at the end of the day take a welcome rest. They do not raise their eyes to heaven to seek God to give him their thanks. Like the ancient Epicureans, they would say: “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!” Nor do they seek Him to find out what is their purpose on earth and why they die, how can they live forever, for they seek mostly satisfaction of their material things and various pleasures.

     Forgetting and unbelieving that there is a true God they call creation the creator, some claim that man is born  from nature making him to be lower than nature, being a servant in nature’s chains, a corpse in nature’s tomb. They cannot understand begin to understand a little about the extreme complexity and glorious beauty of creation but they readily deny a creator.

Unbelievers and idolaters do not know how to rejoice in the Lord, how to struggle to do his will and keep His commandments, they are dead before they die. For to be separated from God who is the source of our life is real death. They also degrade God by their unbelief and by worshiping idols in place of God. Idolaters show by their actions that they belief in something because they worship gods made with human hands. Another group of idolaters are those who indulge in various material things as if their was nothing higher or better.

     They all have a common error, for they fail to acknowledge the wonderful and supreme intelligence and divine perfection that is responsible for all that exists. The magnificence of God is partially seen  in His glorious and innumerable creatures, visible and invisible, animals that live on earth, fish that swim and birds that fly, and men that inhabit a good part of the earth. They fail to see themselves, their value and their ultimate and perfect destination. Man is above all creatures that we know, for he is endowed with divine qualities of intellect and feelings, and he rules over all the earth. No other creature resembles man, but man is the image of God. 

     Also in degrading and denying  God they also degrade man materializing him and failing to see that of all creatures on earth, man is superior to them all.  After degrading God and man what is left? Only matter and eventual death. We who are believers in the true God have the most valuable gift to offer others, that gift is eternal life.

     The law of God is not a bunch of do and don’t do commands. The law of God is given to mankind through His Son and His Church. It is designed to form man into His own image and likeness, that is to become gods like God. If the world followed Christ and His Holy Orthodox Church, earth would become heavenly for Christ taught us to do only good and no evil, and for this a perfect moral law has been given. Lying, stealing, killing, adultery, bearing false witness, and every other evil are against Christian law. There is also the positive law, where we become humble and meek, honest and just, feed the poor, assist others, love everyone including unbelievers and idolaters. Everyone keeping the law does so not by compulsion but by free choice.

      There is a penalty to being an unbeliever or idolater for it encourages and worships evil and fails to reward good and this leads to a bad and corrupt society, with injustice, crime, wars, and with much bloodshed. Only Orthodoxy headed by Jesus Christ can offer these good benefits to the human race, for she alone possesses them.

ATTENDING CHURCH MAY NOT LEAD TO HEAVEN

ATTENDING CHURCH MAY NOT LEAD TO HEAVEN

     Probably hardly anyone would disagree that attending Church services is necessary for our salvation, but if we never miss church services in our lives, this will not in itself, bring us into the kingdom of heaven and eternal life. Many believe that attending church services regularly has a good end, but this is a part of our path to salvation. We are called to become sanctified children of God and not children of this world. Christ himself founded the Church, yet He taught many other rules of behavior blessings. He taught things that must be avoided as well as things that are necessary and affect our salvation. To claim that going to church is enough would nullify everything else which is impossible.

He taught that we must keep the written and oral traditions of the Church which instruct us an many things and we are bound to keep and preserve them. The Bible and the oral teaching and traditions of the Church instruct to avoid evils and to perform good words.

     “The spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16). If anyone has the spirit of God within himself he will have witness that he is a child of God. Becoming a child of God will cause a person to completely modify his life, depart from all evil and do only good,  and live according to Christ’s commandments. This change is effected by our conscious decision to live as a child of God. If the spirit of God does not dwell in us we cannot be inwardly aware that we belong to God.  Repentance and confession and receiving Holy Communion is commanded to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot continue to do evil, have a foul mouth and then claim to be Christians and children of God. Repentance, confession and communing are part of entire spiritual life.

     If we are not children of God then we are slaves of the evil one and need the Lord’s help to escape. If we are not children of God then we have not become Christians even though we may bare the name. Genuine children of God strive to become purified and holy knowing that this is most necessary. If our souls do not testify to our struggle then we are not struggling and are wandering  from the path leading to eternal life. “We have not received the spirit of slavery” says the Apostle. What is “this spirit of slavery? All that is other than the spirit of God, who Christ God sends to those who love Him. The spirit of slavery is everything that prevents us from being children of God. No one is excluded from the opportunity of becoming children of God which is the spirit of freedom and sonship.