Posts Tagged ‘Gospel of Matthew’
You Cannot Make Yourself Great
Try as we might, we cannot change our status in society. We cannot change how others view us. We cannot change if others honor us or slander us. We can only change how we respond to what God has called us. God has called us to greatness, but by His doing, not ours. BRETHREN, since…
Read MoreDo Unmercenaries Still Exist?
The other day I blogged about rewards. The only true reward we receive from God is to live with Him eternally. How do we balance between waiting for God’s rewards and accepting rewards now while we do the work of Christ? Today the Church commemorates two saints known as unmercenaries. Saints Cyrus and John used…
Read MoreUnderstanding is a Gift
Try as we might to understand God, it is ultimately impossible. Jesus Christ is both God and man. The Father is the source of all things. The Son is begotten but has always existed. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father but exists everywhere and fills all things. WHAT!? At that time, a lawyer came…
Read MoreRepetition Leads to Faith
We should take notice when the Church repeats something. In the Liturgy, we repeat ‘Lord have mercy’ many times, along with other prayers. In the Scriptures, even the Holy Authors repeat stories within the text. So, when the Church repeats the same story over and over, we notice. Today is the Fifth Day of Christmas…
Read MoreEpisode 464 – The Bittersweet Pill of the Gospel
When we enter the doctor’s office, sometimes we need to be willing to swallow a bit of bitter medicine, but the pill will heal us when we swallow it. The same is true about the Gospel. When we hear the Gospel, we hear our own mistakes and our own sinfulness. The only way the Gospel…
Read MoreFaithful or Zealous?
The modern Orthodox experience in America is complex with both longstanding members born into the Church coexisting with pious converts who have chosen Orthodoxy as their religion. Neither is more important than the other since both are members of the Body of Christ. Yet there appears to be a battle for the ‘soul’ of the…
Read MoreEating or Fasting
As Orthodox Christians living in a secular world, fasting takes on an additional burden. It is easy to fast when we cook for ourselves, but when others are doing the cooking, things get a bit sticky. When the ‘others’ are not Orthodox, fasting sometimes becomes optional. Now, you must understand that I would never characterize…
Read MoreFocus on Today
A recurring theme in my conversations with Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike is an obsession with the ‘end times’ and what the Church has to say about the end. Whether it is the myth of the rapture or the anxiety of the tribulation, everyone seems to panic about the end. At that time, Jesus’ disciples came…
Read MoreEpisode 458 – Learn to Forgive
It can be difficult to forgive those who use their free will to hurt us. It might be difficult but as we learn in the lesson of the Master who forgave 10,000 talents teach us, we will only be forgiven the sins we commit against God if we forgive even the smallest sin someone else…
Read MoreA New Way
The ‘original’ name for the Church was “The Way” because it expressed not only the ‘way’ to heaven, but a way of life. God came to show us a new way of living, not one bound by rules and regulations, but by love and grace. Sometimes I think the Church should have kept the name.…
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