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(1) Faith is used in seven meanings. – (2) Through faith a person is made worthy of the grace of God. – (3) It is impossible to please God without faith. 1. Faith exists when someone believes in the incomprehensible God, who brought into existence the sky, earth, sea and all visible and invisible creation from non-existent things. All the ancient prophets and righteous men had such faith, from Adam to the incarnate economy of our Lord Christ. After Christ became incarnate, faith is to believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in one Being and three Persons, and in the great mystery of the incarnation of Christ, that is, that the Son and Word of God and the Father, without being separated from the Father, came down from heaven and was incarnated by the Holy Spirit and the Ever-Virgin Mary, and became a perfect man, from a body and a rational soul, united with the Divine; that in one and the same person He was God and man, with two perfect natures - Divinity and humanity, united inseparably and unmerged; that He suffered and was crucified by His will, and was buried also by His will, and that when at the time of death His soul was separated from His body, the Divinity was not separated either from His soul or from the body; that He rose on the third day and after forty days ascended into heaven as a man, and sits on the throne of His Divinity with His flesh, sung with the Father and the Holy Spirit by all the heavenly armies; that all these sacraments of the incarnate economy of Christ were performed so that those who believe in Him would again put on the Holy Spirit, Whom the primeval Adam put off when he became a transgressor of the commandments of God, and this so that, having been strengthened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, they would fulfill the commandments of God and defeat the devil and all invisible demons, for without the Holy Spirit no one can escape sin, nor to fulfill the commandments of God, nor to reflect the power and strength that demons have over us. There is also faith, so that someone can believe the promises of good things expressed in the Divine Scriptures to those who fulfill the commandments of God, and the threats of eternal torment to those who violate them. There is also faith, so that someone is faithful to everything of God, whether it be dogmas or commandments, or, better to say, he is faithful to the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is why every Christian is called faithful. There is also faith, so that someone entrusts himself to God Himself and with all his soul places all his salvation on Him alone. There is also faith so that someone can be sure that God does everything that His goodness pleases, and be convinced that He does this in the best possible way. There is still faith, so that someone can trust in the great and invincible power of the Almighty God and dare about it so that he commands and the mountains move; to which faith very few reach, just as it is written that not everyone has such faith (2 Thess. 3:2). It is impossible for anyone to be saved who does not have shameless and firm faith in Christ the Lord, who does not believe without hesitation the words of God, who does not have love for God and people, love that comes from a good conscience, by virtue of which (good conscience) humility and mercy are born. 2. By the power of faith, before any other virtue, the grace of God comes as the foundation of every virtue, and with the help of the grace of God, every virtue is established in the heart and becomes effective; so that every virtue that does not come from the grace of God is not counted by God as a real virtue, because such a virtue is not God’s. It happens that demons induce other prominent virtues, teaching people to appear chaste, merciful, meek and thereby keeping them arrogant and proud. The grace of God comes to a person, although unclean and nasty, but who has a truly grateful heart, and true gratitude is to recognize with the heart that grace is grace. And it is impossible for one who has received grace to be as grateful and grateful as he should be if he does not first recognize the greatness of the grace he has received. Those who do not realize how great the grace they receive do not value it. So, we should know that the grace of the All-Holy Spirit comes to everyone who believes in Christ, not for good deeds, which he did before (if it came for good deeds, then there would not be grace, but payment for deeds), but it comes from God for faith, comes before any good deeds, and already on it, as on a solid foundation, good deeds are built, which are perfect only with the help of grace; so that God does not count the deeds that happen without the grace of the All-Holy Spirit as anything, no matter how they did not happen at all. Good is no longer good if it is not done well, but it is impossible for good to be done well without the grace of Christ. If this were possible, God would not have come to earth to become a man in order to bestow such grace on people, through which alone all good can be done. And blessed is the man who has learned that with the help of the grace of Christ all good can be done; The one who does not know this is damned; he holds the faith of Christ in vain. This is why the majority of people, when they sing psalms and pray, only pronounce psalms and prayers with their lips, and their minds carry on conversations with demons, because it is they, the demons, who take up his mind and spin it around in vain, worldly, carnal, vindictive thoughts, so that good, prayer and psalmody are not done well, that is, in a proper manner pleasing to God. Is it not obvious from this that good cannot be done without the grace of Christ? If it is impossible for good to be done well without the grace of God, then what kind of true good can a person boast about, supposedly it was his own doing? None. That is why true Christians, as if they realize that they have nothing good in themselves, but everything from the grace of God, are always humble and contrite, which serves as a sign of true Christians. And arrogance, arrogance, vanity, insolence, pride, love of glory and ostentatious humility, which happens for the sake of human glory, are signs of not true Christians. 3. So faith and good works are two things that are inextricably linked with each other. Faith is for good deeds, but good deeds are achieved not for the sake of faith, but through faith. Without faith, no one can do truly good deeds and please God, because for the sake of faith the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ comes to those who believe in Him. According to the measure of faith that one displays, grace is also given. He who has great faith is given great grace; Those who have little faith have little grace. But even then we must remember that faith alone, be it true and Orthodox faith, will not bring any benefit to those who believe so, without good deeds. The manifestation of faith is the power that comes from faith; The manifestation of strength is the zealous doing of God’s commandments and godly deeds. For life-giving (energy) comes from the power that someone possesses can do anything. So, since it is impossible to please God without faith (God is pleased with good deeds), it is clear that faith gives the power to do good and godly deeds according to the will of God. Faith here in relation to what I say is, of course, not only to believe in Christ and in all His words, but even more so to dare in Christ and to bear in the heart the assurance that by the power of Christ we can be freed from evil and practice every virtue, as the holy Apostle Paul also confessed, saying: I have labored more than all: not I, but the grace of God which is with me ( 1 Corinthians 15:10). So, whoever has not been deemed worthy to receive the grace of Christ and to recognize it intellectually as inherent in his soul, bears the name of Christian in vain; he is the same with the infidels. He may think that he has avoided all evil and practiced all virtue, but in truth a liar is also a pretender. Even if he works, his work is in vain. Let him distribute all his property to the poor, fast, keep vigils, sleep on the bare ground, pray, cry out: Lord, have mercy! But if he does not carry in his heart the conviction that the grace of God given for faith is the mercy of God, and it is not this one grace that he seeks to receive first of all; if he had no idea that it was only for the sake of receiving this grace that he gave away his property and exposed himself to all sorts of hardships and suffering; if he strives for the wrong purpose, either to receive grace for the first time through Baptism, or, if he had it and it went away because of his sin, to return it again through repentance, confession and self-abasement, but he gives alms, fasts, performs vigils, prays and so on, not with this one goal and not to this one end, but thinks that he is performing glorious and valuable virtues good deeds in themselves before God - then in vain he toils and exhausts himself. This goal, which I mentioned, is from the beginning of the world the hidden sacrament of Christianity, which appeared in recent times (Col. 1:26). Paul understands this when he says about God that He wants all mankind to be saved and to come into the understanding of truth (1 Tim. 2:4). For knowledge of the truth is nothing other than this very grace. It is the truth that Jesus Christ became, according to the Holy Gospel (John 1:17). And it is impossible for a Christian to find mercy from God if he does not know this grace. For just as Christ could not perform signs and wonders for unbelievers, so He cannot have mercy on any of those who, although they believe in Him, did not first know that the grace of Christ, given by Him and through Him, is itself mercy and salvation. It is impossible for anyone to be saved in any other way unless he receives Divine grace, which has the power to deify him, or to make him a god by grace. Let us, brothers and sisters, settle down to this one end to do all our works, that is, to receive and know God’s grace and mercy in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power, with His beginningless Father and His All-Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen. You might be interested in: