My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.
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SIN (Αμαρτία) [Part II ]
The Word of God says: "Sin is the transgression of the law" (I John 3:4). This means that sin is a violation of God's law. Every violated law, be it civil or natural, entails punishment. Sin, as transgression of the highest law--the will of God, leads to most heavy punishments. These punishments can be temporary or eternal. The temporary ones are sent by God to bring us to our senses and for correction. If we repent and are reconciled with God, we will save ourselves in our sins, if we do not want to repent of them, if we persist in our rebellion against God, He will let us go our own way.
The end result of sin is an ultimate separation from God. And since God is the happiness of the human heart, separation from God is the deprivation of that happiness, or eternal sorrow. If sin is such a terrible evil, why do all of us commit sin so carelessly? How have we gotten to the point of befriending our sins most intimately, of getting used to them to such a degree that most of us today think that sin is unavoidable in life? How have we been able to stand, and still stand, the filth, dust, and cobwebs in the rooms of our hearts, living with a dull insensibility in this disorder, amid the stench of our lawlessness? All this is simply inexplicable. But it is a fact. Hardened, morally dulled, we have become indifferent toward the call of our own conscience and toward the concern for our salvation....And this indifference has come to the point where we underestimate the weight and the fatefulness o four wickedness. We think that we are not doing anything really bad when we sin. Oh, if we could measure the whole weight of our sins and if we would feel clearly that this weight is pulling us toward the bottom of hell, we would rather agree that the earth swallow us and that the rocks bury us than for us to sin and anger God.
If we picture a pair of scales and put human sins on one of the dishes and on the other--the holiness of all the bright spirits of heaven and of all the righteous people who have lived on earth, then all the holiness in heaven and earth would not be able to lift up the dish of human sinfulness. Only the power of God can lift it up. That is why God sent to earth His Only-Begotten Son Who was to atone for human sin with His Sacrifice on Golgotha. Since then, all the sins of man from all times can be forgiven if repentance for them is offered. Since then, there is no sin which weighs more than the weight of God's mercy. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His Only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).
Take courage, sinners! There is deliverance for us! Jesus Christ, Who carried on His shoulders the sin of all humanity and Who paid our debts to God with his death on the Cross, can take our sin on His shoulders as well. Is it not because of this that Saint Andrew of Crete prays in the name of all of us who sin before God: "Take my heavy sinful burden away from me and give me tears of repentance!" We must shed tears of repentance, because there are only two kinds of water which can wash away the filth of sins: the water of baptism and the tears of repentance. Furthermore, as Saint John Climacus asserts: "greater than baptism itself is the fountain of tears after baptism, even though it is somewhat audacious to say so. For baptism is the washing away of evils that were in us before, but sins committed after baptism are washed away by tears. As baptism is received in infancy, we have all defiled it, but we cleanse it anew with tears. And if God in His love for mankind had not given us tears, those being saved would be few indeed and hard to find." (Source: The Forgotten Medicine. The Mystery of Repentance by Archimandrite Seraphim Aleksiev)
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" -- Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George