Mercy Triumphs over Judgement

Occasionally God conspires against us.  Not for our ill or downfall but rather for our raising up.  Raising up is what He does.  It has always been what He does.  Christ's rising from the dead is just the culmination of what God has been working at since Adam and Eve fell into death and took the rest of us with them.

I feel that I have been conspired against these past few weeks.  Everywhere I turn I have been confronted with the same theme: Mercy, compassion, and what it means to truly live the life of love.

I have been studying the letter James wrote to those first century refugees from Jerusalem, the "Diaspora" as he calls them.  We read in Acts about the stoning of Stephen and the persecution that broke out against the Church following that and how the Jerusalem church was scattered to four winds of the known world, fleeing for their lives.  James, as the spiritual leader and Bishop of Jerusalem writes to his scattered flock about suffering and trials, not in a philosophical vacuum but to a people who were suffering greatly. He also repeatedly turns to the topic of mercy. He starts with this overarching injunction:

1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Whatever else you think religion is about, James puts this at the center of the discussion.

In chapter 2  James begins by condemning the showing of personal favoritism to the rich over and against the poor. He ties this in to a discussion of law breaking to show that favoritism makes us no less of a law breaker than murder and adultery.  He exhorts us to live as those who will be judged by the law of liberty, but the one thing that triumphs over judgement, regardless of whatever other law we have broken, is mercy.  "Mercy triumphs over judgement."

Where James enters in to his often debated passage on faith and works he again inserts (quite deliberately I think)  to illustrates that faith without works is dead the example of a "brother or sister naked and destitute of daily food" coming into the assembly and what the proper response to them is: not words of "peace and be warmed and filled," but rather material mercy in the form of food and clothes.  This is the mark of living faith.

But the conspiracy continues, as if that is not enough.  I came across this passage from St. Symeon the New Theologian some time back.  I was struck when I read it about my selfishness with the generous provisions God has bestowed upon me, but I am good at distracting myself from such conviction.  Yet like an unwanted pop up on a website or an earwormy song you can't get out of your head it keeps intruding on my thoughts.

"When a man really considers his neighbor as himself, he will never tolerate having more than his neighbor. If he does have more, but refuses to share things generously until he himself becomes as poor as his neighbor, then he will find that he has not fulfilled the commandment of the master. He no longer wants to give to all who ask, and instead turns away from someone who asks of him while she still has a penny or a crust of bread. He has not treated his neighbor as he would like to be treated by him. In fact, even if a man had given food and drink and clothes to all the poor, even the least, and had done everything else for them, he has only to despise or neglect a single one and it will be reckoned as if he had passed by Christ and God and He was hungry and thirsty."

-St. Symeon the New Theologian, The Practical and Theological Chapters

And then this week I read this article by Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou highlighting the tragedy of global proportions playing out in the Middle East and Africa. It's not that I have not been unaware of the horrific crimes against humanity being committed in many places around the world but I confess, I have learned over the years to keep my heart at a distance from such tragedy. I am tempted to think my heart is already stretched to the limit with the less dramatic and catastrophic but nonetheless personally significant, tragedy and challenges close to home, from a wife with chronic illness to relatives with mental illness and friends with job loss. How can I possibly take on the burden of a Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Nigeria ad nauseum. But then I am reminded of the book by Archimandrite Zacharias, The Enlargement of the Heart. It's been a long time since I read the book I can't even really remember a specific quote but I remember clearly the idea that the heart's capacity to love is limitless. We can, by God's grace, embrace the whole world in our hearts. This is something I have to take by faith. I certainly don't feel it possible but I trust the witness of the Saints and the Scriptures. Does not John say "But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him." (I John 2:5) God's love is perfected IN him. Is there any limit to God's love? Oh yeah, and by the way, he also has something to say about mercy: "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (I John 3:16-17)
I have a lot of this world's goods.  I live and work in one of the more affluent cities in Texas. Sure, I support my World Vision kids and give to the local parish. So what?  How much do I spend on myself and my flesh. I have not really made a sacrifice to do those things. I have not given my two widow's mites. How much did I spend on dinner and a movie this weekend?  How much do I spend on a venti-mocha-caramel-extra-shot whipped cream frappa ching$ latte on a regular basis.  What is my entertainment budget for the month? How much do I spend eating out for lunch most days because I am too lazy to fix a sandwich at the house before I leave in the morning? Sigh. The list goes on.

The great conspiracy has come to a head. So, now what?  I don't know yet, but repentance by its nature requires a change.  I may not be able to do much for the Middle East.  After all, I have just 5 loaves and few fish among tens of thousands of hungry mouths. But I can do more than I am.  What if we all did a little more than we are?  We have seen how far a few loaves and fish can go in the right hands.

Below are some links to trusted and respected charities.  I exhort you, give up a coffee this week and send 5 dollars to one of them. And then maybe do it again next week.  And the week after that ...

If we are willing to engage these tragedies with our hearts (even if we start small), I believe, I trust, that we will find our hearts enlarging and our desire to see what God will do with our two mites and loaves will increase. This is the first step to resurrection.  God is wanting to raise us up out of ourselves so that we can embrace the whole world, so that we can be filled with His love.  This is life.  Nothing less will satisfy or bring lasting joy.

International Orthodox Christian Charities
World Vision International
Direct Relief

Fasting

In anticipation of the beginning of Lent next week I thought these words from St. Nikolai Velimirovic in Prayers By The Lake (also available on the web at http://www.sv-luka.org/praylake/) might be a helpful meditation as we enter the fast.  

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Chapter 41

With fasting I gladden my hope in You, my Lord, Who are to come again.

Fasting hastens my preparation for Your coming, the sole expectation of my days and nights.

Fasting makes my body thinner, so that what remains can more easily shine with the spirit.

While waiting for You, I wish neither to nourish myself with blood nor to take life--so that the animals may sense the joy of my expectation.

But truly, abstaining from food will not save me. Even if I were to eat only the sand from the lake, You would not come to me, unless the fasting penetrated deeper into my soul.

I have come to know through my prayer, that bodily fasting is more a symbol of true fasting, very beneficial for someone who has only just begun to hope in You, and nevertheless very difficult for someone who merely practices it.

Therefore I have brought fasting into my soul to purge her of many impudent fiance's and to prepare her for You like a virgin.

And I have brought fasting into my mind, to expel from it all daydreams about worldly matters and to demolish all the air castles, fabricated from those daydreams.

I have brought fasting into my mind, so that it might jettison the world and prepare to receive Your Wisdom.

And I have brought fasting into my heart, so that by means of it my heart might quell all passions and worldly selfishness.

I have brought fasting into my heart, so that heavenly peace might ineffably reign over my heart, when Your stormy Spirit encounters it.

I prescribe fasting for my tongue, to break itself of the habit of idle chatter and to speak reservedly only those words that clear the way for You to come.

And I have imposed fasting on my worries so that it may blow them all away before itself like the wind that blows away the mist, lest they stand like dense fog between me and You, and lest they turn my gaze back to the world.

And fasting has brought into my soul tranquility in the face of uncreated and created realms, and humility towards men and creatures. And it has instilled in me courage, the likes of which I never knew when I was armed with every sort of worldly weapon.

What was my hope before I began to fast except merely another story told by others, which passed from mouth to mouth?

The story told by others about salvation through prayer and fasting became my own.

False fasting accompanies false hope, just as no fasting accompanies hopelessness.

But just as a wheel follows behind a wheel, so true fasting follows true hope.

Help me to fast joyfully and to hope joyously, for You, my Most Joyful Feast, are drawing near to me with Your radiant smile.

The Pharisee

A while back, I attended the feast day for a monastery that is nearby. A friend of mine was asked to help with cleaning the temple after the service. He was more than willing to help, but he thought he’d join the rest of the visitors in the trapeza for the meal first. Before he had a chance to take his first bite of food, one of the monks came up behind him and asked him what he was doing. Innocently, he said he was preparing to eat. The monk, who was also a good friend of his, put his hand on my friend's shoulder and jokingly asked, “Here I am working and you’re sitting and eating?  What, do you think you’re better than me?” My friend apologized, got up, and helped clean the temple.

I laughed when I first heard this story. My friend is a good guy and willing to help anyone with just about anything, so the idea that he intentionally didn’t want to help the monks was laughable. But what stuck with me was what the monk said to him, “What, do you think you’re better than me?” It was a question that no one had ever asked me before, nor was it one that I had asked myself. Do I think I’m better than the guy next to me? What about a drunk, homeless pedophile that I might meet on the street? What about the corrupt politician, the radical religious nut, the promiscuous neighbor, or the lazy co-worker?  Am I better than him?

If such a drunk, homeless pedophile were to ever walk up to me on the street and ask me that same question, I would probably say “No, of course I don’t think I’m better than you.” And why would I ever say that I thought I was better than him? I’m a Christian and all Christians are supposed to be humble. We follow the path of our Master, the One who was willing to make a quiet entrance into His creation, surrounded by animals in a small town. This is the same Man who willingly allowed Himself to be beaten, bruised, and humiliated by the very hands that He created. Who am I to ever think that I’m better than anyone else?

The sad fact is that I think I’m better than you. I think I’m more correct, more honest, more virtuous, more of everything good and that “I’d never do a horrible thing like that.” I often prop myself up on a tiny house of cards so that I can stand just a little bit higher than my neighbor. I would never admit this fact, because I’m too proud to admit how proud I actually am. What, do I think I’m better than you? Yes, I actually do.

The fact of the matter is that all humans are capable of committing the most heinous, evil acts imaginable. And at the same time, we are also capable of the most beautiful and inspiring acts of Godliness. I’m in the same boat as everyone else: I’m made of the same stuff and I have the same disease. I’m one step away from being a murderer or worse. Actually, I am a murderer for “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” (1 John 3:15). If this is the case, I’ve murdered a lot of people on the way to and from work.

And in a lot of ways I am worse than many of “those people.” I have problems that I refuse to see. I use other people’s sins as makeup to hide my own boils, cuts, and bruises. I’m sick but I don’t see it, I’m dying but I’m convinced I’m immortal. I am my own healer and my own physician, I am a blind man who thinks he leads himself into all holiness (Luke 6:39). In my own hubris, I leave no room for the actual Healer because I’m already on the job. Who needs the Physician of our souls and bodies when I can just pretend that I’m fine? Why would a healthy man like myself ever seek the One who can heal all illness?

The fact of the matter is that I am the only sinner on this planet. I may think I’m better than you, but I am not. Not only am I not better than you, but I’ve deluded myself into thinking I am something I am not. On the Sunday when we remember the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, know that I’m that arrogant bastard who stands in the presence of the only Good One and thinks about how great is he is compared to others. Meanwhile, those who I condemn lay broken on the ground, weeping for their sins, and quietly entering the Kingdom of Heaven.

As You Wish

It is well known that obedience is the chief among the initiatory virtues, for first it displaces presumption and then it engenders humility within us. Thus it becomes, for those who willingly embrace it, a door leading to the love of God. 

    - St. Diadochos of Photiki, "On Spiritual knowledge" 41 in Philokalia vo.l 1 p. 265

My wife's family has a collection of canonical family films.  That is, there are certain movies, that if you wish to really be a part of the family you will not only watch but grow to love over time as you begin to share in the family's rehearsal of certain lines from these movies at appropriate times.  Sleepless in Seattle, Joe Versus the Volcano, and While You Were Sleeping, to name a few. The one that has, at least for my wife and me, become the most often quoted is The Princess Bride.  If you have not seen this movie, stop reading now and go find it on Netflix, Amazon, or your local library and watch it. Then come back and read the rest of this post.

Done?  Good, now we can continue.

One of the recurring lines in this movie, spoken by our daring hero, Wesley the farm boy, to the somewhat entitled Buttercup is the simple reply, "As you wish."  Never a question as to the wisdom or necessity of some task he has been commanded to do, just a gentle, loving response, "As you wish."  It is the phrase that so marked his character that it is by this phrase Buttercup recognizes him later in the film when Wesley, now the masked Dread Pirate Roberts, has "kidnapped" her in order to save her from an unhappy marriage and certain death.

Perhaps a more sublime example of what I am driving at in this post comes from Mary, the Theotokos, Mother of God. When the angel visited her to announce that she would bear the Savior of the world and explained that she would be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and bear a Son, her simple reply was "let it be to me according to your word." Perhaps she could have just said, "As you wish."

Simple obedience, as St. Diadochos says, if embraced willingly is "a door leading to the love of God."  But what does obedience entail?  How do we cultivate a willingness to be obedient and to whom should we be obedient? Consider with me three spheres of obedience;  Three opportunities to say, "As you wish."

Obedience to the commands of Christ
I don't think many of us would balk at the idea of obedience to Christ.  Certainly the scriptures leave no doubt as to the necessity and benefit of following Christ's commands if we are to progress on the spiritual path.  In fact, returning again to the Theotokos and her place of honor among the saints, we should be struck by this statement of Christ in the 11th chapter of the Gospel of Luke,

27 And it happened, as He spoke these things, that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!”
28 But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

More than that?! How shall we be more blessed than to bear the savior of the world?  Hear the Word of God and say, "As you wish."

Obedience to rules of the Church
The weekly and seasonal fasts, the weekly cycle of services, and daily prayer rules given to us by the Church are there also for our benefit.  It is not that we gain any special favor or merit with God by doing these things. Rather it is that these are the gym exercises for obedience to Christ.  Because as much as we may think we want to be a "doer of the word," as St. James exhorts us, we find all to often that our desires and will betray us.  If we cannot control our stomach then it will betray us when we are commanded to give bread to the hungry.  If we cannot control our greed then it also betrays us when we are commanded to give clothes to the naked. So we exercise our will in fasting, prostrations, prayer, tithes, whether we *feel* like it or not, so as to put the unruly desires of our passions to flight.  The marathon runner has freedom to run 26.2 miles because she painstakingly disciplined herself to run shorter distances everyday for months on end. Without the practice, no matter how much a person may think they want to run a marathon, they are not free to do so because their bodies have not been given the proper training. They will be betrayed by their body's weakness. So obedience to these things, like daily laps around the track, are of great help to us as we seek to be obedient also to the commands of Christ. Like Paul, we must be willing to discipline our bodies so that we are free to respond, "As you wish."

Obedience in everyday life
Once again I find Tito Colliander's words on this topic in Way of the Ascetics to be quite insightful. Allow me to quote at length.

Besides fasting we have other teachers to whom we can show obedience. They meet us at every step in our daily life, if only we recognize their voices. Your wife wants you to take your raincoat with you: do as she wishes, to practice obedience. Your fellow-worker asks you to walk with her a little way: go with her to practice obedience. Wordlessly the infant asks for care and companionship: do as it wishes as far as you can, and thus practice obedience. A novice in a cloister could not find more opportunity for obedience than you in your own home. And likewise at your job and in your dealings with your neighbor.  (p.44) 

If we pay attention we will have a hundred opportunities a day to deny our own self-will in order to serve another.  With each request of our time, resources and attention if we can learn to respond simply with, "As you wish," then we will begin slowly to be set free.  And in that freedom we will be transformed and be filled with the love of God.

O Lord, who humbled Yourself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross, grant us grace that we might be able to respond, "As you wish," at every opportunity so that we may learn to love as you have loved us.

St. Athanasius - The Incarnation of Christ

The magnificence of the universe in all it’s terrible beauty and complexity provides us a small shadow of the greatness of God.  For such a wonder as the entire cosmos to be brought from nothing into being, it must be by the will of a even more wonderful Creator.  St. Athanasius says creation “too, has been brought out of non-being into being by the Word”.  To bring all things from non-being into being, the Creator must have power over both what is and what is not.  His will reaches into and commands the very depths of that nothingness which we humans cannot begin to fathom (Job 11:7,8).

How then is it possible for a finite creature to even begin to know the infinite Creator?  Man can obtain a glimpse of the Divine through His creation (Psalm 19:1).  But a glimpse is not enough: what groom would be satisfied with providing his beloved bride with only a glimpse of him?  No, it was the will of God in His love for mankind to walk among us as one of us so that we might know Him better.  As St. Athanasius writes, “The Lord takes for Himself a part of the whole, namely a human body, and enters into that.  Thus it is ensured that men could recognize in part that which they could not recognize in whole.”  His appearance was in such a way that mankind could easily see and be drawn to God.  It was and still is His desire to walk among men so that He might be known by them (John 14:7).  

It was also His will that mankind should be made right again. In all creation, it was mankind alone who strayed from his intended purpose and function.  It was mankind who needed correcting.  St. Athanasius writes, “Similarly, though He used the body as His instrument, He shared nothing of it’s defect, but rather sanctified it by His indwelling.” Just as a captain enters into a ship so that he might take hold of it’s course and correct it, God entered into mankind, assuming human flesh and nature, so that by Him human nature might be made right (Romans 5:19).

It is through the incarnation of Christ in human flesh that humanity can know the unknowable (John 1:18).  It is through Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension that all of mankind might follow Him to the very heights of heaven.  We follow Christ, the Son of God, who is fully human and yet fully Divine, who made a clear path for us to the unknowable.  

Make up your minds

“Whoever hammers a lump of iron, first decides what he is going to make of it, a scythe, a sword, or an axe. Even so we ought to make up our minds what kind of virtue we want to forge or we labour in vain.”

-St. Anthony the Great from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, p. 8,number 35.



I’m not generally in the habit of making new year’s resolutions. That we single out January 1 as the time to make new beginnings never quite made sense to me. What makes it more special than the preceding 364 days? That we single it out as the time to make new beginnings never quite made sense to me. At least that has been my internal argument against making new years resolutions in the past. But I recognize in myself that there is indeed a tendency to pick some arbitrary day in the future as a point of departure from some habit or sin or to start some new desired habit. I have often said to myself, “on Sunday I will renew my commitment to stop this or that sin habit. I’ll go to church and renew my commitment to follow the commands of Christ.. but until then…” Or even the changing of the day. “Okay, tomorrow morning when I get up I’m going to start over”. Or maybe on my Birthday, or this coming Lent. I find my flesh is very keen to convince me that tomorrow or the next is a good time to repent and start again. In the meantime it tries to convince me to indulge just a little more, to slumber just a bit longer. This is the deception of the enemy.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews quotes to us from Psalm 95 (LXX 94) and exhorts us to consider today as the right time for repentance

7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:“Today, if you will hear His voice,8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,In the day of trial in the wilderness,9 Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me,And saw My works forty years.10 Therefore I was angry with that generation,And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,And they have not known My ways.’11 So I swore in My wrath,‘They shall not enter My rest.’”

12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; 13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, 15 while it is said:

“Today, if you will hear His voice,Do not harden you hearts as in the rebellion.”

Hebrews 3:7-15

And again, St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthian church writes to them,

We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.2 For He says:

“In an acceptable time I have heard you,And in the day of salvation I have helped you.”Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. 

I Corinthians 6:1-2

In a little book that has become a favorite of mine, The Way of the Ascetic, Tito Colliander, echoing the voice of the fathers and the Scriptures, begins the first chapter saying,

“If you wish to save your soul and win eternal life,arise from your lethargy, make the sign of the cross and say: In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Arise from your lethargy. He means by this that we should not delay for a moment. He goes on to say,

“Arise, then: but do so at once, without delay. Do not defer your purpose till ‘tonight’ or ‘tomorrow’ or ‘later, when I have finished what I have to do just now.’ The interval may be fatal.”

I think, though, that one reason we have this impulse to delay is because perhaps we have already failed so many times in the past to make good on our resolution. Perhaps for a while we do okay, but eventually we are worn down and give in. Consequently, though we know we need to make a change, we lack the courage. There is something about tomorrow that promises to impart to us the courage needed, so we set a date and hope that when it arrives we are really ready to make a go of it.

St. Anthony also suggests that one reason we don’t succeed is that we are perhaps a little haphazard in our approach. Change cannot happen except through particulars. The enemy loves for us to think in the abstract about the spiritual life.

Modern psychologist, self help gurus and preachers alike will tell you that it’s almost impossible to just stop doing some bad habit. Neuroscience teaches us that those patterns of behavior are not just moral but are,in fact, actually hardwired into our brains and that like well worn pathways through a forest it is easiest for us to follow those paths than to forge new ones. So to stop a bad habit you must replace the behavior and not just stop it. The fathers have known this all along.

So, St. Anthony tells us we must be deliberate about what virtues to cultivate and how. The desert fathers tell us that each vice has it’s counter virtue. If you are struggling with anger then work to cultivate mercy. If despair then cultivate thankfulness. The point is you must be deliberate.

As you remember St. Anthony today and celebrate his feast, consider your own life and listen to what he tells us. Talk to your spiritual father, priest, or confessor about your struggles and find out what virtue may be most beneficial to work on. Consider the triggers for that sinful habit you wish to defeat, and by God’s grace begin to attach those triggers instead to their counter-virtue. Be deliberate, and when you fall, don’t wait: get up, make the sign of the cross, and begin again.

O Christ, grant us victory over the enemy and grant that today we may enter your rest.

Today God is Made Manifest

Today is the feast of Theophany. Christ comes as a man to be baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan “to fulfill all righteousness”. St. John Chrysostom raises the very obvious question we all have when we contemplate this feast. Why did Jesus need to be baptized?

Now it is necessary to say, for whom was Christ baptised and by which baptism? Neither the former, the Jewish (i.e. for cleansing from bodily impurity), nor the last—ours. Whence hath He need for remission of sins, how is this possible for Him, Who hath not any sins? “Of sin,” it says in the Scriptures, “worked He not, nor was there deceit found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). And further, “who of you convicteth Me of sin?” (John 8:46). And His flesh was privy to the Holy Spirit. How might this be possible, when it in the beginning was fashioned by the Holy Spirit? And so, if His flesh was privy to the Holy Spirit, and He was not subject to sins, then for whom was He baptised?
- Discourse On the Baptism of Christ

He goes on to answer the question,

Through the other two reasons, of which the one the disciple speaks, and about the other He Himself spoke to John. Which reason of this baptism did John declare? Namely, that Christ should become known to the people, as Paul also mentions: “John therefore baptised with the baptism of repentance, so that through him they should believe on Him that cometh” (Acts 19:4).

and

And there is a second reason, about which He Himself spoke. What exactly is it? When John said, “I have need to be baptised of Thee, and Thou art come to me?” He answered thus: “Stay now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill every righteousness” (Matthew 3:14-15).

But what exactly does it mean to fulfill every righteousness? Quite simply it means he subjected himself to be obedient to His Father and to the law. Chrysostom states:

Thus, if obedience to God constitutes righteousness, and God sent John to baptise the nation, then Christ has also fulfilled this along with all the other commandments.

He begins his earthly ministry by demonstrating humility and simple obedience. He always goes before us. We also are called to Christ’s humility, that same humility that leads to the revelation of God in our own lives.
Today is also the feast day of St. Theophan the Recluse who reposed on this day in 1894. I was first introduced to St. Theophan through his revision of an ancient classic of spirituality “Unseen Warfare”. It seems appropriate to draw from this classic today. The epistle reading for today (Titus 2:11-14;3:4-7) is a good backdrop for much of what Unseen Warfare has to say to us.

11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

4 But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Christ has appeared, submitted himself to humility and obedience, and was confirmed in his Divinity by the witness of the Father and the Spirit. The Father testifying, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And so we are exhorted to follow his example. We are to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts; Live soberly and righteously looking forward with the hope of eternal life. We strive to live righteously but put no hope in our our righteousness. We struggle to live godly lives but have no illusions of justifying ourselves before God. As the Psalmist says, 8 My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.

And so, in Unseen Warfare, the first chapter ends with this exhortation as the beginning of the spiritual battle. This is, as it were, the foundational perspective we must carry into the battle. Keep these things in balance and never forget from where our help comes.

Finally, after learning what constitutes Christian perfection and realising that to achieve it you must wage a constant cruel war with yourself, if you really desire to be victorious in this unseen warfare and be rewarded with a crown, you must plant in your heart the following four dispositions and spiritual activities, as it were arming yourself with invisible weapons, the most trust-worthy and unconquerable of all, namely: (a) never rely on your-self in anything; (b) bear always in your heart a perfect and all daring trust in God alone; (c) strive without ceasing; and (d) remain constantly in prayer.

May God grant us grace to imitate Christ’s humility, to submit our lives to Him who was obedient and so to have His life revealed in us as it was revealed in Christ.

Joyous Feast!