Поучение в день Преображения Господня. Святого Тихона, епископа Воронежского и Задонского 161

Brothers, strive to know your calling and choice to do: for if you do this, you will never sin. This will richly grant you entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 1:10–11). The honor and nobility that the humane God bestows on people, true Christians, is so great and lofty that it is impossible not only to describe and explain it in words, but also to understand it with the mind. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy tongue, people of renewal, says the Apostle to true Christians (1 Pet. 2:9). Christians are called children of God (1 John 3:2). What is more glorious for a person than this name? True Christians have close union and communion with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ: in them, as in animated churches, dwells the Heavenly God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. What could be more honest and noble than the soul in which the Trinitarian God dwells? It is a great honor for people to receive the king of the earth into their home: it is an incomparably great honor to receive the King of Heaven into the house of their soul, and to have Him living in it. What could be more blessed than that soul in which God lives, as in His church? In it is a paradise of sweetness and joy, in it is the kingdom of God. True Christians are heirs to God, joint heirs with Christ; for them - the eternal and heavenly kingdom, and all blessings. There is no nobler and more glorious than a true Christian. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, earned us this nobility and glory through His suffering and death; His Heavenly Father gives, the Holy Spirit accomplishes. But this nobility and glory is acquired or destroyed in this world: acquired by true repentance and faith, but destroyed by unrepentance and unbelief. Knowing with what glory and nobility the Lord has honored us Christians, let us strictly monitor ourselves in order to be true Christians. Behold, you call yourself a Christian, but do you do deeds befitting a Christian? You confess God: but do you honor God with a good conscience? In holy baptism you renounced Satan and all his evil deeds; but with his corrupt life did he not again follow him? You promised to serve Christ, the Son of God, with faith and truth: but do you remember and keep your vows? From God’s word you hear that God is in every place and sees every deed, thought, and intention. But by your actions in deeds, words, and intentions, do you give Him respect, as children do to a present father, slaves to a present monarch? Every lawlessness committed by deed, or word, or thought is outrage before God, and it is annoying to Him, but harmful to us: whether you steal, deceive, lie, slander, blaspheme your neighbor, or commit other lawlessness - you are outrageous in the eyes of God and therefore act shamelessly before God’s Majesty, and you anger Him and yourself you harm. Do you lift up your heart to God in prayer? But do you not defile your heart with evil and nasty thoughts, and do you not hold anger against your neighbor? Do you lift up your hands to God? But don’t you defile them with robbery, theft and other untruths? Do you call upon the holy and terrible name of God with your lips? But don’t you defame them with slander, slander, condemnation, lies and other vices? Are you standing before God in prayer with your body? - But are you standing in spirit? Do you bow your body before Him? But do you worship with your heart? Doesn’t the tongue say something else in prayer, and the mind think something else? Are you asking God for forgiveness if you have sinned? But do you forgive your neighbor? Are you looking for God's mercy? But do you yourself have mercy on a person like you? You speak to God: hear, Lord! But do you not stop your neighbor’s ears? As we will be towards our neighbors, such will God be towards us. We listen to our neighbors who ask us: God also listens to us: we have mercy on the poor, our brethren: God also has mercy on us the poor; We forgive our debtors, and God also forgives us our debts. God is more attentive and listens to our mercy than to our prayer: and He looks more at a kind, compassionate heart than at the frequent repetition: Lord, Lord. God is merciful and righteous: as He is merciful, He loves mercy, and has mercy on the one who shows mercy; and as a righteous one, He righteously takes away mercy from those who themselves do not want to have mercy. You receive food, drink, clothing, house and other benefits from God; but do you remember the Benefactor, and do you thank Him from your heart? We are so poor and wretched that we have nothing of our own except sins and infirmities; and we receive so many blessings from our Creator that we cannot live for a single minute without Him. When we sin, we shamelessly insult the great Benefactor and are ungrateful to Him. It is hard to insult a benefactor; much more so - God, Who is goodness and love, and does not cease to do good to us who do evil and insult Him! Know that it is better to die several times than to offend God - it is easy to offend, although eternal goodness. Whoever sins against God acts like someone who, receiving good from a person, dishonors him. You know that Christ the Son of God redeemed you from the devil, hell, eternal death, not with silver and gold, but with His honest blood; Do you understand this great and incomprehensible work of Him? Do you remember this every day and do you thank the great Benefactor from the bottom of your heart? He did not spare His blood for your sake: did you not spare money for His name's sake? For your sake, he endured blasphemy and reproach with meekness: do you not take revenge on your neighbor for a slanderous and blasphemous word, do you endure it with meekness? He suffered and died for you: do you show yourself ready to suffer and die for His sake? He carried a heavy cross, burdened with your and the whole world’s sins: do you also bear the cross that God laid on you, without grumbling and indignation, but with gratitude? He drank the bitter cup for your sins, as the Gospel teaches: do you not delight in the sins for which Christ tasted such bitterness? You call Him Lord. Truly, He is the Lord (Lord is His name!); but do you work for Him as a servant of your Lord? He bought you as a slave for Himself, not with silver and gold, but with His blood, as it is said, and therefore you are yours, but His purchased slave. Are you living according to your own will and not according to His? Do you obey and please Him as your Lord? He does not force anyone to please and work for Himself, as the masters of this world do; but lovingly calls, and His love, revealed to us, and our position, which we must show to Him as the Creator and Lord, Redeemer and our highest Benefactor, convinces. And in what we please and work for Him, it benefits us, not Him; and when we do not do this, it harms us, not Him. He loved you, the enemy that exists, so much so that He did not refuse to die for you: but do you love Him, such a loving, great Benefactor? True love is recognized not in words, but in deeds, not by frequent exclamations: Lord, Lord, but by doing His will, as He Himself says: If you have My commandments and keep them, then you love Me (John 14:21). Do you love your neighbor as you are commanded, as yourself? You don’t do to him what you don’t want for yourself, and do you do to him what you want for yourself? Do you rejoice with him when he rejoices, or do you grieve when he grieves? Do you have compassion for the suffering? Do you help the poor? Do you try to console the sad? Do you want to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, etc.? And when you can, do you do it? And when you can’t, do you sympathize with him from your heart? We are all neighbors to each other: the rich to the poor, the healthy to the sick, the wise to the foolish, free to those imprisoned, the authorities to the subject and those subject to the authorities, parents to children, children to parents, shepherds to the flock and the flock to the shepherds, masters to slaves, slaves to masters, husbands to wives and wives to husbands, teachers to students and students to teachers, old to young and young to old; in a word, every person should be a neighbor with love and work for each other with love, according to the word of the Apostle (Gal. 5:13). So is that the boss? How do you manage God's people, your brothers? Do you care about their overall benefit? Do you eradicate untruth and spread truth? Do you restrain the willfulness of the outrageous, do you protect the innocent? Are you a subordinate? Do you honor your boss and obey him for God's sake? There is no authority except from God (Rom. 13:1). Is it the father? How do you deal with children? Do you teach them the fear of God? Are you raising them to be Christians? Do you show them an image of good deeds? Are you a son and daughter? Do you honor your father and mother as God commands? Are you rich? How and on what do you spend your wealth? Do you remember that this is God’s good, given to you not for your whims and luxury, but for your need and your neighbor? Do you remember that you are the steward and the spender, and not the owner? Everything is God’s: the earth is the Lord’s, and its fulfillment (Ps. 23:1). How do you spend God's goodness? Do you provide for the poor and needy? Do you remember that you will have to give an account of the wealth given to you? Do you remember that wealth, squandered on whims and luxury, perishes, but given into the hands of the poor and needy, it is preserved and returns with greater profit in the future life? Are you gifted with intelligence and have a lot of knowledge? How and for what do you use the talent God has given you? Do you use it for the glory of God and the benefit of your neighbor? You are called by the Word of God and redeemed by the blood of Christ to eternal life: do you care about this? Do you seek this with diligence? Aren't you chasing after worldly vanity? Is your heart not attached to the earthly world? Do you remember that you are a wanderer and traveler in this world, as all pious people think of themselves? You see that death abducts in different ways the young and the old, the ready and the unprepared: do you remember your hour, which all the saints remembered, and with sighing, tears and repentance they expected it and prepared themselves? Do you remember that hour, followed by either eternal life, or death, or eternal bliss, or torment, or the kingdom with Christ in heaven, or torment with the devil and his angels in the fire of Gehenna - do you remember this terrible hour? You see that none of the dying take anything with them: neither wealth, nor honor, nor glory, nothing, but leaves everything here: do you remember that you will leave everything here, and just as you entered the world naked, so you will leave the world naked. This hour comes unexpectedly and sends away the ready and the unready to the next age: are you preparing for this hour? Do you want to die blessed? Are you trying to live godly, avoid sin, call on the Lord and please Him? And as you leave this world, that is how you will appear before the judgment of Christ. – Christians approach the most holy Eucharist of the Body and Blood of Christ; This shrine is taught to the pious and saints, as the priest proclaims: Holy to the saints: how do you approach this great sacrament? With what faith and conscience? It’s scary for someone who doesn’t work to start, and it’s scary to leave! In a word, every Christian! How do you act before God, who watches everything? How do you speak, do, think, how do you treat your neighbor? How and in what ways do you spend the time God has given you for repentance? Are you not losing yourself in idleness and vain amusements? Do you remember that time is precious, and once a word is spoken, time lost does not come back? Do you remember that the more you live, the closer you get to death, to the judgment of Christ and eternity, and everyone will inevitably go either to a blissful or painful life? Remembering all this, those who sweat know our calling and choice to create: for whoever does this, imams will never sin. This will abundantly grant us entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen 162. See “Creations like the saints of our father Tikhon, Bishop of Voronezh and Zadonsk.” Fifth edition. 1889 Moscow. Volume V, pp. 200–202; 272–277. You might be interested in: