ON THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE COMFORTER

ON THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE COMFORTER

“But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance,  whatever I have said to you” (John 14:26).

     We need to pray many times each day and a  particular prayer is that the Holy Spirit will be sent to dwell within us, so as to continually remind us of the words and teachings of the Lord, with the hope that upon our sincere request He will respond to our prayer. In the frequent gatherings of the Church, our first prayer is to the Holy Spirit as follows: “Heavenly King Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who are everywhere present and fills all things; treasury of Good things and Giver of life: come and abide in us, cleanse us from every impurity and save our souls O Good One.”

     Our Lord will certainly respond to our sincere request seeking His Comforter and Spirit of Truth, for it is His good will to bestow every blessing upon us, for He s good and the Lover of man. But words alone will not attract His grace. It is when  when we put his words into the actions of our lives we will attract the Spirit. In the Lord’s prayer we ask the Lord to give us this day are essential bread, but we need the Holy Spirit to prepare our souls thst we may partake of yjr holy mystery.

     The Holy Spirit reminds and teaches us all things. But the teaching of the world is of temporal things of lesser importance and not of everlasting life. The Holy Spirit teaching vital and important things helps us to understand valuable things regarding our present lives and the acquisition of eternal life.

     There are many things to remember about the kingdom of God and our general and individual salvation, and the spirit teaches us everything including old and new things causing our knowledge and love to continue to increase. We can be forgetful but the presence of the spirit in our souls will remind us of many things otherwise forgotten.

“He shall teach you all things necessary.” The Holy Spirit being the source of knowledge knows everything that the Godhead knows. When He dwells within us He reminds us of everything that comes from God who is an infinite source.

     “He shall bring all things to your remembrance which I have spoken to you.  The words from Christ are countless in number for we only have words that were preserved and published.

Sometimes we estrange ourselves from God due to sin and thus fall into spiritual weakness. The Holy Spirit cannot dwell in an unclean vessel, and so will depart from our hearts. When the Holy Spirit leaves us gladness and strength peace and tranquility depart at the same time and this renders us sad and miserable.

When we follow the Lord Jesus Christ, we must establish Him as the center and focus of our lives, and we must keep watch over our souls guarding against every attack of the evil one who desires to steal our attention and affections that he might cause us to perish.  Every thought we have of Christ becomes food for our souls and and  gives strength to our bodies, therefore Christ is the best food and drink for our souls and bodies.

MEN WHO LIVE IN PROSPERITY 

DO NOT LISTEN

“I spoke to you in your prosperity and you would not listen”

(Jer. 22;21).

    The Lord addressed King  Jehoiakim and the Jews as He chastized the Jewish people, saying: “I spoke to you in your prosperity and you would not listen.”  Concerning these words God still speaks today to express the same thoughts against His own people, that is the Orthodox Christians. When we feel ourselves, content doing very well and living prosperously, then we forget or are ignorant of God and focus our full attention on everything else. God says the same thing  to all of us today: “I spoke to you in your prosperity and you would not listen.” What will be our response to God? This is very important: to completely ignore God our Creator is certain death for our souls

     The Lord created us from matter and created matter from nothing, and every human being is very special and extremely precious, for to no other creature did He bestow such precious gifts as upon man. He bestowed on man life, intelligence, freedom, conscience and the ability to love in his heart. He breathed His own divine spirit into man thereby elevated him to the heights, destined to progreess and become His own image and likeness. No higher destiny could be bestowed upon man or any other creature. Therefore, man is the ruler of all creation and has the highest and most noble destiny of any creature.

     “I spoke to you in your prosperity and you would not listen.” Today God continues to speak to man and says “ ”I am the light of the world; he follows me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life.” Man was created by God as a free and moral creature. He is able to distinguish choose good and reject evil. He has a conscience which reminds him of the differences so that he may always make proper moral decisions. Christ the Light of the world is the Savior and only Lover of man.

     Good and evil is been clearly distinguished by both God’s law and man’s conscience Man must choose only good and avoid every form of evil. Both the Old and New Testaments confirm these things, the Commandments are a perfect example, for they forbid every evil deed. The law also commands us to “do to others as we would have others do to us.” The commands of Jesus Christ and His Church exist not to control evil deeds but to guide man, leading him to become the image and likeness of God which is his proper destination.

    

J     esus Christ is our mediator, our rabbi and teacher, our ruler and our king. He is our savior,  redeemer and mediator. He is the only Godman and our great high priest. This is the most important  truth about the Church of Christ, Holy Orthodoxy. God speaks these things to you in your prosperity.

Will you listen? 

     We cannot depend on our bishops to teach us these things, although it is their sacred duty as rulers and teachers of the Church. Thr Church is much motr than the collection of money topay for  the institution of the Church. The Church is the living Body of its only Head Jesus Christ. Its function is to preach the Gospel and baptize everyone outside the Church, and spread knowledge of salvation everywhere. Conducting the the many religious aspects of the Church is extremely important and is among the many functions of the clergy, and for this reason we bestow honor on our Orthodox clergymen at all times. The Church however is led but not headed by various bishops but Jesus Christ is its only Head. And it is His will that must always be done in the Church. Every Orthodox Christian is obligated to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling for we are all destined by the Lord to everlasting life. But we are also obliged and expected to spread this important knowledge among men.