Resist Not Evil

June 28, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Fri­day. [Rom. 2:14–29; Matt. 5:33–41] But I say un­to you, That ye re­sist not evil (Matt. 5:39); in oth­er words, al­low your­self to be a vic­tim of hu­man self­ish­ness and mal­ice. But how can one live like that? Do not wor­ry. He who gave this com­mand­ment is our Pro­vid­er and Guard­ian. When you de­sire to live like this with com­plete faith from your whole soul, to not re­sist any evil, the Lord Him­self will ar­range a life for you which is not on­ly bear­able, but joy­ful. Fur­ther­more, re­sis­tance in fact can ir­ri­tate an ag­gres­sor even more and mo­ti­vate him to in­vent new trou­bles, where­as a yield­ing de­mean­our dis­arms him and hum­bles him. Thus, if you would just suf­fer the first on­slaught of mal­ice, peo­ple will take pit­y on you and leave you alone, while re­sis­tance and re­venge kin­dle mal­ice, which is pass­ed on from the in­di­vid­u­al to his fam­i­ly, and then from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion.

Whosoever looketh on a woman

June 27, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Thurs­day. [Rom. 1:28–2:9; Matt. 5:27–32] Who­so­ev­er looketh on a wom­an… hath com­mit­ted adul­tery with her already (Matt. 5:28). Living in so­ci­e­ty, one can­not help look­ing at wo­men. What to do? A man does not com­mit adul­tery sim­ply by look­ing at a wom­an, but by look­ing at her with lust. Look if you must, but keep your heart on a leash. Look with the eyes of a child — pure­ly, with­out any evil thoughts. One must love wo­men as well, for they are not ex­clud­ed from the com­mand­ment a­bout love of neigh­bour — but with love that is pure, which bears the soul and spir­i­tu­al as­pect in mind. Just as there is nei­ther male nor fe­male be­fore God in Chris­tian­i­ty, so it is in the mu­tu­al re­la­tions of Chris­tians. But this is very dif­fi­cult, you will say. Yes, it does not hap­pen with­out a strug­gle; but strug­gle pre­sup­poses a lack of de­sire for evil. The Lord counts as pu­ri­ty the un­lust­ful de­sire of the mer­ci­ful.

Outward Behavior

June 26, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Wednes­day. [Rom. 1:18–27; Matt. 5:20–26] Ex­cept your righ­teous­ness shall ex­ceed the righ­teous­ness of the scribes and Phar­i­sees, ye shall in no case en­ter in­to the King­dom of Heav­en (Matt. 5:20). Char­ac­ter­is­tic of the scribes is knowl­edge of the law with­out con­cern for life ac­cord­ing to the law. Char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Phar­i­sees is cor­rect­ness of out­ward be­hav­iour with­out par­tic­u­lar con­cern for cor­rect­ness of thoughts and feel­ings in the heart. Both at­ti­tudes are con­demn­ed to re­main out­side of the heav­en­ly king­dom. Let ev­ery­one re­ceive from this the les­son he needs. If you want to learn the Gos­pel law, do so — but in a way that en­ables you to es­tab­lish your life ac­cord­ing to this knowl­edge. Try to be cor­rect in your be­hav­iour, but keep your in­ner feel­ings and dis­po­si­tions cor­rect at the same time. If you have gained some knowl­edge, do not stop there, but go fur­ther and un­der­stand the de­mands such knowl­edge makes of you — then act ap­prop­ri­ate­ly. Let your be­hav­iour show that your feel­ings and dis­po­si­tions are not the re­sult of externals, but such that your ex­ter­nal be­hav­iour pro­ceeds from your feel­ings and dis­po­si­tions, and ac­tu­al­ly expresss them. If you gear your­self this way, you will be higher than the Scribes and Phar­i­sees, and the doors of the king­dom will not be closed to you.

Temptations

June 25, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Tues­day. [Rom. 1:1–7, 13–17; Matt. 4:25–5:13] Af­ter the Lord’s bap­tism, when the Spir­it de­scend­ed up­on Him in the form of a dove, He was brought down in­to the wil­der­ness to be tempt­ed. Such is the path com­mon to all. Saint Issac the Syr­ian notes in one place that as soon as you taste grace-fill­ed con­so­la­tion, or re­ceive some gift from the Lord — a­wait temp­ta­tions. Temp­ta­tions con­ceal the bright­ness of grace from one’s own eyes which usu­al­ly con­sume ev­ery good with self-opin­ion and self-ex­ul­ta­tion. These temp­ta­tions are some­times ex­ter­nal — sor­rows, humiliation; and in­ter­nal — pas­sion­ate thoughts, which pur­pose­ly are re­leased, like beasts un­chain­ed. There­fore, we must heed our­selves and strict­ly sort out what oc­curs with us and in us, to see why it is hap­pen­ing, and what ob­li­ga­tions it brings.

Ask of the Father

June 20, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Thurs­day. [Acts 25:13–19; John 16:23–33] Ver­i­ly, ver­i­ly, I say un­to you, What­so­ev­er ye shall ask the Fa­ther in my name, he will give it you (John 16:23) the Lord said, even con­firm­ing the point: Ver­i­ly, ver­i­ly, I say un­to you. What a shame for us that we do not know how to make use of such a true prom­ise! It would be al­right if were on­ly the shame this caus­es; but a shad­ow is cast al­so over the prom­ise it­self, as though it were too great and im­pos­si­ble. No, the guilt lies en­tire­ly on us, main­ly be­cause we rec­og­nize that we are not faith­ful ser­vants of Christ, and our con­science does not al­low us to ex­pect mer­cy from the Lord. In ad­di­tion it hap­pens that if some­one starts ask­ing God a­bout some­thing, he does it with di­vid­ed soul: he men­tions that thing in his prayer once or twice as if in pass­ing — and drops it, and then says lat­er: “God does not hear.” No, when ask­ing for some­thing in par­tic­u­lar, one must be per­sis­tent and in­de­fat­i­ga­ble in prayer, like the wid­ow who forced even the heart­less judge to sat­is­fy her pe­ti­tion by sim­ply not giv­ing him any peace. When true men of prayer ask for some­thing in prayer, they unite with it fast­ing, vig­il, all sorts of dep­ri­va­tion, and char­i­ty; fur­ther­more they ask not for a day or two, but for months and years. For this they re­ceive it. Im­i­tate them, if you de­sire to have suc­cess in prayer.

Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name

June 15, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Sat­ur­day. [Acts 20:7–12; John 14:10–21] And what­so­ev­er ye shall ask of the Fa­ther in my name, that will I do (John 14:13). What a con­sol­ing prom­ise! But how few make use of it! Peo­ple rare­ly keep this in mind. There are peo­ple who do not un­der­stand this at all, and do not ac­cept it. Why is this so? Be­cause they do not love the Lord, and they do not ful­fil His com­mand­ments. This un­faith­ful­ness of the heart to­ward the Lord re­lin­quish­es any bold­ness to pe­ti­tion the Lord, just as a la­zy ser­vant does not dare ask some­thing of his mas­ters, for he knows that he does not de­serve any mer­cy. The es­tab­lish­ed pray­ers are read in their usu­al course, and they con­tain very great pe­ti­tions; but they are merely read, and this, as we well know, is far from prayer and pe­ti­tion­ing. We can­not stand with true prayer be­fore the Lord and ex­tend our pe­ti­tions to Him un­til our con­science is clear be­fore Him.

He who has the Son has the Father

June 14, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Fri­day. [Acts 19:1–8; John 14:1–11] If ye had known me, ye should have known my Fa­ther al­so (John 14:7). There­fore, deists do not know God, in spite of the fact that they bear His name (Deus means God; from here comes the word deist), and rea­son el­o­quent­ly a­bout Him. There is no true God with­out the Son and with­out the Ho­ly Spir­it. He who be­lieves in God, but does not con­fess Him as the Fa­ther of the Son, does not be­lieve in a god that is the true God, but in some per­son­al in­ven­tion. The true God gave His Son, gave pow­er to be­come the sons of God (John 1:12), loves them, and hears each of their pray­ers, for the sake of the Son. That is why he who has the Son has the Fa­ther; and he who does not have the Son, does not have the Fa­ther. No one comes to the Fa­ther ex­cept through the Son, and re­ceives noth­ing from the Fa­ther, ex­cept through the Son. A­part from the Son there is no path to the true God; and he who thinks to in­vent Him is de­luded.

The Need For Unbelief

June 12, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Wednes­day. [Acts 18:22–28; John 12:36–47] Lord who hath be­lieved our re­port? (Is. 53:1), the Proph­et Isa­iah la­ments in as­ton­ish­ment. Now it would be fit­ting to cry out, “Who now sin­cere­ly be­lieves Thy word, O Lord?” Al­most ev­ery­one has be­come slack. Man­y are yet si­lent a­bout their un­be­lief; while it is rare to find a heart that has not turn­ed in the oth­er di­rec­tion. What is the rea­son for this? In­ter­est in un­be­lief has begun to be felt; the need for un­be­lief has de­vel­oped, for con­ceal­ing in­ter­ests of the heart which do not a­gree with faith. Here is the root of evil. Rea­son is not the ad­ver­sary of faith, but a cor­rupt heart is. Rea­son is on­ly guilty here in that it sub­mits to the heart, and be­gins to phi­los­o­phize — not ac­cord­ing to the foun­da­tions of truth, but ac­cord­ing to the de­sires of the heart. Fur­ther­more, pow­er­ful ar­gu­ments for the truth seem worth­less to the mind, and some trifling ar­gu­ment a­gainst the truth be­comes a whole moun­tain. In gen­er­al, con­fu­sion comes in­to the men­tal realm, blinding the mind, which does not and can­not see, no mat­ter what you tell it.

Blind to the Truth

June 6, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Thurs­day. [Acts 14:20–27; John 9:39–10:9] And Je­sus said, For judg­ment I am come in­to this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind (John 9:39). They which could not see were the sim­ple peo­ple who be­lieved the Lord in sim­plic­i­ty of heart, while they which saw were the scribes and learned men of that time, who due to their pride of mind did not be­lieve, and held back the peo­ple. Our clev­er ones think that they see, and, this is why they are a­li­en­a­ted from that faith in the Lord that the sim­ple in heart and mind firm­ly hold to. There­fore, ac­cord­ing to the truth of the Lord they are blind, where­as the peo­ple see. They are ex­act­ly like those birds which can see at night, but not dur­ing the day. The truth of Christ is dark for them, where­as what is con­tra­ry to this truth — false­hood — to them seems clear: here they are in their el­e­ment. This is so ob­vi­ous, but nev­er­the­less they are read­y to ask: Are we blind al­so? (John 9:40). There is noth­ing to hide; you are blind. But since it is your own fault that you are blind, the sin of blind­ness and not see­ing the light lies on you. You can see, but you do not want to, be­cause you came to love a de­cep­tive, yet tempt­ing lie.

Consequence of unbelief

June 4, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Tues­day. [Acts 12:25–13:12; John 8:51–59] The Jews be­came an­gry with the Lord be­cause of His ac­cu­sa­tion, and pick­ed up stones to cast at Him. But the Lord went through the midst of them, and so pass­ed by (John 8:59). They did noth­ing to the Lord, but they de­stroy­ed them­selves, for the con­se­quence of their un­be­lief was the ter­ri­ble sen­tence of the Lord: Be­hold, your house is left un­to you des­o­late (Matt. 23:38) and al­so: let us pass from here. And the Lord pass­ed to an­oth­er place and chose oth­er peo­ples for His hab­i­ta­tion, in­stead of the be­loved Is­ra­el. Even now, in­sig­nif­i­cant peo­ple, in the self-de­lu­sion of a proud mind which does not con­tain the truth of Christ, take up stones of op­po­si­tion to the Lord and cast them at Him. They do not harm Him, be­cause He nev­er­the­less is the Lord, and His truth is the im­mu­ta­ble truth; they on­ly de­stroy them­selves. The Lord goes by, leav­ing such peo­ple in their vain wis­dom, which whirls them, like a whirl­wind spins loose specks of dust. But when an en­tire na­tion is car­ried a­way with false wis­dom, then the des­ti­ny of an en­tire na­tion is formed, as it was for the Jews. Un­der­stand, ye na­tions, and sub­mit to the Lord!