Spiritual Contemplations for those who serve the Lord |
“And above all things have fervent love for one another, for 'love will cover a multitude of sins.'” (1 Peter 4:8) Introduction The subject of this month's article is fervent love and its wonderful effect on our hearts and emotions as well as the blessings wrought by it. By the nature of our calling we, servants, come face to face with human weaknesses and shortcomings; and we are called to deal with them not only in love but to do so fervently. Ardent love does miraculous behavioral changes. These alterations are manifested in four virtues. 1. Tolerating A heart full of compassion finds excuses for a brother's fault without lingering too long nor too much on those mistakes. While the apostles were impatient with the multitude pushing them away from the Master considering them ignorant and chaotic, Our Lord Jesus Christ regarded the people as a herd in need of a shepherd never complaining about their pressing hard and close to Him. “But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.'” (Matthew 9:36-38). “Then little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.' And He laid His hands on them and departed from there” (Matthew 19:13-15). What a lesson for all the servants who appoint themselves soldiers ordained to chastise, scold and threaten; forgetting that they are called to be compassionate, loving teachers. Fervent love creates a new prospect of kindness towards people rejecting their bad behavior while still loving them; understanding the inherent weakness of the human nature which is shared by all people. The same mistakes you hate are the same mistakes and many more with which Satan tempts you causing you to fall in their snare away from the eyes of the public. This type of tolerance is the reality that God had revealed to Jonah when He explained to him the reason for wanting to save Nineveh. “And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?” (Jonah 4:11). Son of Sirach offers an advice on how to treat the elders, “Son, support your father in his old age, and do not grieve him in his life. And if his mind should fail, show kindness; and do not spurn him when you are in your strength. For almsgiving to the father will never be forgotten. For even in return for the sin of the mother, good will be repaid to you” (Sirach 3:14-16). The best example of forbearance offered by the Holy Bible is that of Jacob. His love for Rebekah led him to relentlessly bear Laban's tyranny who deceived him into serving double the time they had first agreed upon. There is no human interpretation for Jacob's performance except his internal stamina and love for Rebekah that urged him to accept to work seven more years that seemed like a few days.
Let us learn genuine covering of our brethren's sins from our Lord Jesus Christ Who in spite of the Pharisees' endeavor to defame and execute the woman found in adultery; yet artistically He covered her sins encouraging her to stop sinning and offer repentance. So many people are in the same situation as that woman and are in need of cover instead of exposure because they are exposed enough before themselves covered only with shame and low selfesteem. Our Lord Jesus Christ recommended and reciprocated mercy. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). “And above all things have fervent love for one another, for 'love will cover a multitude of sins.'” (1 Peter 4:8). 3. Forgiving Fervent love does not know hatred, or live with resentment or hard feelings; because that would be contradictory to the nature of love. If you cannot forgive even the big grievances, how can you love? Our Lord Jesus Christ stated the principal, “You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:16-20). Lack of forgiveness is lack of love; and the inability to forgive springs from the inability to love. We do not often talk about the loving heart of the prodigal son's father. However, such pristine quality deserves more attention. Despite the grievous offence directed to him from the ungrateful son, whose act implied inheriting his father like a dead person would be inherited; yet the father met that ingratitude with immense love. Every day he would wait for his son's return with a heart full of love and an attitude full of forgiveness and readiness to erase the son's deeds as if nothing had happened. The father was preoccupied not with seeing the situation fixed, but with seeing his son's heart and mind fixed. Lack of forgiveness has closed hearts and homes and opened the court doors wide open for divorce and the destruction of the family structured and blessed by God. God has always been in favor of forgiveness, ready to implement it; “'Remember these, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me! I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, and like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.'” (Isaiah 44:21-22). “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins” (Isaiah 43:25). It was for salvation and the forgiveness of sins that Christ came to our world. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:14- 15). 4. Appreciating Appreciation is an offspring of love. Where there is no love there is no appreciation. To appreciate someone is to value them and praise their performance no matter how trifle it might be. Accumulated insults lead to hardening of the heart leaving no room for reconciliation. Hence the common expected question, "how can I forgive all these offenses that are beyond human capacity?" Human capacity is limited when it comes to dealing with hurtful or traumatic situations. However, the only solution resides with grace granted by the Holy Spirit. Only God's grace is capable of upholding us. Conclusion
Fervent love inspired and upheld by the Holy Spirit, does wonders in terms of giving energy to appreciate each other, forgive insults, forget offences and cover up for others' sins. “Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away” (1 Corinthians 13:8). The virtue of love is not inherent in us. We receive it from God, the source of all love. “He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes” (1 John 2:10-11). “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another ” (1 John 4:8-11). “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:12-14). May God the source of all love fill our hearts with genuine fervent love. The message of fervent love is the only message of hope we, servants, can deliver to a sinner burdened with sin and to a world filled with the venom of hatred. “But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock has been taken captive” (Jeremiah 13:17). “Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, 'He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd does his flock.'” (Jeremiah 31:10). “As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day” (Ezekiel 34:12).
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In this post, there are thirty sayings concerning service. Read every day one saying and make it the subject of the whole day's meditation:
We are able to change and distort the meaning of the words making their meaning matching with what we want them to mean. The most obvious example on this is the word peace. Communists used to call themselves “The countries that love peace”. The church also calls for peace. Yet, there is a great difference between the meaning of peace sought by communists and the peace the church calls for. Peace built upon piracy, fighting against God, and killing one another is not a peace. Therefore, words mean for them what they want them to mean! For them, freedom means piracy, peace means war, and democracy means slavery. One of the well-known psychiatrists wrote in one of his books saying, “We invented some good respectful words instead of the bad words of some life circumstances. We called the drug addict or the alcoholic a chemically dependent person, the harlot a call girl, and adultery is considered to be a personal freedom. They also called the unclean relationships living together, homosexuality a reciprocal life style, stealing a white color crime, and killing babes abortion that is widely practiced in hospitals! This is one of the deceptions of the devil, who is the great deceiver, to not give sin its real name but giving it a nice innocent name. Yet, we cannot achieve salvation unless we confront our sins saying with David, “Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight”. I will mention here some example on the distorted meanings of some words: The word God : A student came to priest saying, “I decided to believe not in God”. The priest asked him then, “What is the reason lying behind this?” He then explained to him: this God Who kills nursing babes and bring illnesses upon people, then He prepared for them a place called hell to torture them in it. How can I believe in Him? The priest replied saying, “I too do not believe in this god”. How many people grew up carrying the same concepts of children about God?! We must talk about the real God, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18). Jesus Christ is the One who is in the bosom of the Father and He said to us, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father”; “I and My Father are one”. For we look at Christ as if from a window from which we see the Father. I mean that we see God through Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are saved by the will of the Father, through the merits of His son and the grace of the Holy Spirit. The word Happiness : What is happiness? Happiness is not found in money, sex, drugs or alcohol. It is neither found in a cruise in the Caribbean Sea. Indeed, the way to happiness is full of erroneous goals. The only way to happiness is that people should know God, love Him and serve Him. Happiness is achieved when you know that God loves you. A Christian said once, “If I look at the past seventy years of my life, I get sure that my present happiness is because I am sure that God loves me. He loves me personally with an eternal love. Nothing can separate me from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ”. The word Love : The true love, Agape, means to deeply care for serving, to give your life, when necessary, to the one whom you love. The greatest example of love is the Lord who loved the world to the end up to sacrificing His only begotten Son!! Love can be misunderstood. It can be taking rather than giving! It becomes no more Agape but lust i.e. abusing the other to fulfill your desires. If God is not present in your life, then the word love will be totally lost. How can you know love in the absence of God who is love? Only in Christ love finds its real meaning. The word Sex : This word was used by the devil and then defiled and lost every good meaning. Yet, this word belongs to God Who created sex. After God created man as male and female, he said that He saw everything very good, very beautiful, very holy and worthy of Him. God created sex for an important thing, which is marriage, and blessed it. Sex is successful when we follow God’s conditions as He is the Creator of sex. Sexual love is a sign and seal of full commitment for absolute giving to the other beloved person. It is a perfect trust and union. Sex is a natural expression of a deep spiritual thing. It is an expression of a full giving to the other beloved person. It is loving the other with all the mind, heart, soul and power. It is a real icon on earth that expresses God’s love for us. If the natural work of love is not an expression of perfect giving from the side of the loving person to the beloved one, then it will be fake. It is a corruption of a holy thing. There is no meaning in a relationship that is not built upon complete commitment and love. Therefore, sex outside the frame of marriage is considered to be a sin. If a sexual relationship loses its holiness through pornography, how can then one express a perfect remaining relationship of love?! Thus, pornography is the death of love, and losing the sound meaning of sexual relationship. Love forced and guided by God must be the greatest and the most precious love in the world. Sex cannot achieve its meaning that God created it for unless it is achieved through God. Sex will neither be pleasurable, satisfying, nor meaningful unless it is according to God. Therefore, marriage became a sacrament in the Orthodox church. Thus, if we succeed to establish a relationship of sexual love built upon full giving, it will be then an icon on earth that expresses God’s love for man. The responsibility of the servant is to refer the word sex to God Who gave it its original definition. It must be purified and referred to God. Marriage is a sacred word that denotes a sacred love and a sacred relationship. The word Church : Many outsiders use the words Jesus and Church freely. They call themselves Jesus followers or the church followers. But what is the historical relationship that connects them to the Apostles or to the early church? In the Orthodox church, the word church means the live body of Christ Who works in the world today. It has a live history connected with the church of the Apostles through the Clergy. We thus talk about the apostolic Tradition. The church does not teach what one thinks about faith but teaches the whole Tradition handed to us by Christ Himself through the Apostles. How can I know if what a certain community teach is a real apostolic Tradition and not a mere personal interpretation of the meanings of faith? We are in great need to be connected historically with the early church to be sure that the Apostles’ teachings have not been reformed or altered but were handed to us unaltered. The word Jesus : There is no a name that is more precious than the name of Jesus for Christians. Jesus is the Lord, the eternal Son of God, the beginning and the end, the second hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, Who was in the beginning with God and all things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men (John 1:2-4). Jesus was neither a man only nor a God only. He is a man and a God in one person. God in the body of man. He approached man because he loves him, wants his salvation, and wants to lift him up and make him a partaker in the divine nature. Indeed, there is no other name under heaven given to people to get saved other than the name of Jesus Christ that at His name “every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth, and of those under the earth” (Philippians 2:10). Let us name things with their real names not with mere innocent acceptable ones. Glory be to Our God. Amen. *Adapted from HGBY monthly Clergical letters
The importance of the ministry comes from its strength, depth, love and giving. The way it affects and changes people! The Effective Word This was clear in the Lord Christ’s service, Glory be to Him. We should take notice of the Lord Christ’s invitation to St. Matthew, “And as He passed by, He saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax collector’s post and said to him, “Follow me”. And he arose and followed Him” (Mark 2:14), (Mattew 9:9). It was just a word said to a person responsible for tax collecting. As a result, he left his job, arose and followed Him without even asking where to? The same powerful invitation was used when calling the four fishermen disciples. As it is written, “And as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then Jesus said to them, "Come after Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." And immediately they left their nets and followed Him. When He had gone a little farther from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets. And immediately He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went after Him.” (Mark 1:16-20). Through the power of the Word, they left everything and followed Him immediately, without any hesitation, delay or argument. They left their father, their nets, and everything. St. Peter summarized it all by saying ..."See, we have left all and followed You." (Matt 19:27).
His words had the power of convincing even those who argued with Him. When He explained to the scribes and Pharisees how a person is allowed to do good deeds on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1-12) and about the Resurrection, it was written “......He forty had silenced the Sadducees” (Matthew 22:34). Also, “...no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.” (Matthew 22:46). His words also influenced others because of their warmth and love. When he said to Zacchaeus, "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house." (Luke 19:5). A word, so deep and warm, led this person to repentance, so that he said to the Lord, "Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold." And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house” ( Luke 19:8, 9). All this because of one strong, warm word spoken by the Lord. The same powerful words characterized the ministry of our Fathers, the Apostles. A sermon said by St. Peter the Apostle on Pentecost, attracted three thousand people who were baptized that same day (Acts 2:37-41). The strength of the word also appears in St. Paul’s ministry, even when he was captured and judged before Felix the governor “Now as he reasoned about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid...” . (Acts 24:25). Also, King Agrippa said to St. Paul, "You almost persuade me to become a Christian." (Acts 26:28). The Power Of Giving Some servants like the easy service, with no troubles or effort, but the power of the ministry appears in bearing its hardships, in love, giving and rejoicing. An example of this is St. Paul the Apostle’s ministry “...in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness (2 Cor 11:26, 27). * Adapted from HH Pope Shenouda III's The Spiritual Ministry - Chapter 4
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