Posts Tagged ‘eternal life’
Do What He Tells You
Every Orthodox Christian is taught that obedience is a blessing. We are taught to be obedient first to God, then to the Church through our spiritual father. There are many stories of blessings that come from obedience, not the last of which is eternal life. In today’s readings I was reminded of obedience. Take a…
Read MoreGreater Things to Come
Day Four of Pascha and, if you’re like me, you have been working through your favorite foods. You may even be a bit bloated since fasting is forbidden this week. Fear not! There is plenty of time for fasting next week. This week we celebrate the promise of greater things from God. At that time,…
Read MoreRewards
From childhood we are taught to expect a reward for our ‘good’ behavior. We clean our room, eat our dinner, and finish our homework, and we get rewarded. Do all those things without complaining and our reward is greater. Sound familiar? Brethren, recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard…
Read MoreThe Blood of Christ Saves
Throughout my years of ministry I have heard many ‘catch phrases’ about salvation. Among my favorites is about the blood of Christ. Phrases such as, ‘saved by the blood’ indicate deep faith in Christ. They also indicate an ignorance of the Scriptures. When Orthodox Christians speak about the Blood of Christ, we speak about Holy…
Read MoreEternal Union
It is easy to talk about forgiveness when it doesn’t matter. Too often I hear, “Sure I forgive them. God will take get them. I don’t have to.” I’m sorry to tell you, this is not forgiveness. This is vengeance. The problem isn’t now. The problem comes later when we are eternally together. There are…
Read MoreRemain or Depart
Free will has been given by God to every human being. We are free to choose to do good or to do evil. We are free to love God or that hate Him. We are free to remain close to Him, or to depart far from Him. The choice is ours to make. Not everyone…
Read MoreWaters from Heaven
We all learn as children that water is crucial to life. Our bodies are mostly water. Without water nothing lives. We also learn from the many storms that rage that water can also bring total destruction. We should not be surprised when God uses water to save us. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s…
Read MoreAvoiding Mortal Sin
If you have been reading our daily blog for any length of time, you know we speak a great deal about sin. We speak about avoiding sin. We speak about confessing sin. We speak about forgiving the sins of others and being forgiven by God for our sins. We rarely speak about the ‘type’ of…
Read MoreFrog in Boiling Water
As I was reviewing today’s scripture readings, I realized that Christians ‘back then’ were much more bold in their faith than we are today. Every day we read accounts of martyrs for Christ, the vast majority of them martyred in the first three centuries of the Church. It isn’t that they didn’t sin. They did…
Read MoreDo YOU Want Eternal Life?
When Jesus was asked, “What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” He responded by saying, “If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.” (Matthew 19.16-17) After listing all the commandments the rich man chose to push the issue further by saying, “All these things I have kept from…
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