157. При случае подобное вспоминается

We see that a person remembers something like this on occasion; When he sees or hears something, something similar comes to his mind. For example, when a learned person sees a student going to school, he remembers how he himself went to school; a farmer, seeing another farmer cultivating the land, remembers his own farming, and so on. Christian! Remember, on occasion, similar things that relate to the creation of your soul. You see how humbly, meekly and prudently, either children walk and turn before their father, or slaves before their master, or those who are subject to their authority, remember that before God, as Omnipresent and looking at everything, we walk, live and turn, think, speak and do. If people walk before people with fear and decorum, and are careful in everything, so as not to anger them and not fall into punishment; all the more must we walk, live and convert before our God with fear and reverence, and do nothing that is contrary to His holy will. For wherever we are, we are before God as Omnipresent. For God is everywhere and in every place, as is testified to in Psalm 138 and other places of Holy Scripture, although we do not see Him - for it is impossible to see Him - and we do not understand how He is in every place. Beware of sinning before God, lest you experience His vengeful hand. If you are ashamed of man, you should be ashamed of God even more. If you please man, you must please God even more. If you fear man, much more should you fear God, Whom all creation fears and trembles. Our God is a fire that consumes the ungodly (Heb. 12:29; Deut. 4:24). Beware, lest wickedness strike you. Render to Him everywhere and in every place, day and night, in open and secret places, in solitude and in gatherings of people, in the house and on the way, and in every deed give the honor, glory and obedience worthy of Him. Your conscience, the word of God, and the Christian faith demand this from you. If God is in every place, as He truly is, and sees all our deeds and thoughts, and hears the word, it follows: 1) It is impossible to hide or hide from Him anywhere and in any place. Because wherever we go and wherever we think of hiding, He is there before us. Human! You run away from people, but you cannot run away from God anywhere. He precedes you everywhere. You hide from human eyes, but you cannot hide from God: He sees you everywhere. You are careful that people do not hear your rotten words; but you cannot protect yourself from God’s ears: He hears your word everywhere and everything. You are ashamed to do evil in front of people; but God alone sees your evil more than the whole world: be ashamed and afraid before Him everywhere and to do all kinds of evil. What you are doing now, living in this world, secretly or openly, everything will be shown to you at this world Judgment, and will be presented before you, as he says: I will reprove you and bring your sins before your face (Ps. 49:21). 2) From here you see, Christian, how seriously those Christians who are lawless and are not afraid to break God’s law before God annoy God. If any lawless person dared to jump, dance, shout and show other outrages in front of the royal face, wouldn’t this be a great dishonor, annoyance and offense to the royal person? You yourself see that such a disorderly person would have done great dishonor to the Tsar. Such, or even incomparably greater, outrage is shown by those people who commit lawlessness before God, the Omnipresent and All-Seeing, and thus commit outrage before Him. This includes fornicators, adulterers and all kinds of defilers; scolding each other, reproaching each other, quarreling with each other, and beating each other; slanderers and slanderers, who wound their neighbors with their tongues, like with a sword; crafty, cunning, charming, deceivers and hypocrites who treat their neighbors flatteringly and insidiously; sorcerers and those who call them to themselves; singing nasty and inappropriate songs, and raising cries and cries; feasting disorderly and unseemly; dancing and dancing riotous men and women; those participating in fist fights and watching them; thieves, kidnappers, robbers, rapists and everything else that steals someone else's property secretly, or by flattery, or openly; merchants who cheat about goods and ask for more than the goods are worth; and especially those lawless people who are not afraid to call on the name of God in lies, and to them - O Thy long-suffering, Lord! - they assert their lies as if they were the truth. This includes judges and clerks who do their work out of passion and reward, and not according to truth and the power of the oath; those who swear by the name of God for the sake of lies; all are foul-mouthed and blasphemers; in a word, everyone who is not ashamed and not afraid to commit lawlessness. For all iniquity is done before God, whether it is done secretly or openly. 3) From here you see how seriously such Christians sin before God. They often hear the word of God, they also hear that God is everywhere and in every place, but they do not heed this and are careless about it, and do not correct themselves. 4) You see again how great is the goodness of God and long-suffering. People commit lawlessness before Him and do dishonor and annoyance to Him, but He does not immediately execute them, but is patient and waits for their repentance. What meek king, seeing the outrage shown before him, will endure? Soon human meekness turns into rage. Our God is not like that: He sees the iniquities committed before His Face by man; He sees and is patient, not wanting the wicked to perish, but wanting everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). You see the grace of God, you also see His long-suffering. 5) But hear, poor sinner, what the apostle says to you: Or do you neglect the riches of God’s goodness, meekness and long-suffering, not realizing that God’s goodness leads you to repentance? But, due to your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous Judgment from God, who will reward everyone according to his deeds (Rom. 2:4-6). Do you see a subject standing before the King, or a slave standing before the master, and talking with him, and asking him for mercy? You see how he stands before him: he stands with humility and reverence, and bows his head and knees, and looks at him with tenderness, and with attention asks for what he wants to receive. Remember here that this is how true Christians stand before God in prayer: they stand with humility and reverence and attention, and bow their heads and knees before Him, and look at Him with faith, and fall to Him, and declare their needs and what they need to Him, and ask for mercy and help from Him, and confess their sins to Him, and ask for forgiveness. 1) True prayer does not consist only in outward words and oral speaking; but true prayer consists of spirit and truth (John 4:23). When we pray to God, we must stand before Him not only with our body, but also with our spirit, and say the prayer not only with our lips, but also with our mind and heart, and not only bow our head and knees, but also our heart before Him, and raise our mental eyes to Him with humility. Every prayer must come from the heart; and what the tongue says, the mind and heart must speak. Therefore, nothing should be taught like true prayer. God looks at the heart (1 Sam. 16:7), and not at our words, and listens to the groaning of the heart, and not to verbal speaking. God! Teach us to pray (Luke 11:1). 2) Such prayer, that is, performed in spirit and truth, can be done in any place. For in the spirit everywhere and in every place, in the house and outside the house, in open and secret places, with the people and without the people, walking, and sitting, and lying, and on the way, and in the marketplace, and always and in every place you can freely stand before God, and worship, and pray. For the spirit is always free, and everywhere and always can approach God, and talk with Him, and worship Him. And to God, as Omnipresent, and looking at us all, and providing for us all, access is free everywhere and at all times; and He is ready to hear everyone everywhere and always. It is not always possible to approach a person with our petition: the doors to God are always open. And even if all the people scattered over the face of the whole earth came to Him in spirit and truth and prayed, he would hear everyone. Hear us, O God, our Savior, the Hope of all the ends of the earth and those who are in the sea far away (Ps. 65:6). 3) Prayer should be with humility and reverence. Christian! Remember who you are and before whom you stand in your prayer. Earth and ashes (Sir. 10:9; 13:31), besides a sinner, you stand before the Holy, Great and Incomprehensible God!.. Remember with whom you talk in prayer, to whom you say: “Have mercy, Lord! Give it, Lord! You, Lord! To you, Lord! – and so on. We speak humbly and reverently with a man, a King, or a lord, or whatever authority; incomparably greater humility and reverence are needed when we stand before God and talk with Him; for God is incomparably superior to every man and His majesty is incomprehensible. 4) What a great deed and honor it is for a person to stand before God and talk with Him! It is glorious to converse with the King of the earth: much more with God, the King of Heaven, Who is the King of kings and Lord of lords. There is no greater honor for a person than to talk with God. Glory to You, Lord, that You have honored us, poor sinners, with this honor. Blessed be the name of the Lord forever! 5) Prayers, canons and church poems, read quickly and without reasoning or attention, are nothing more than mere noise, as you yourself see, Christian; and they, read like this, irritate God more than they appease God. Such people, although they often imagine that they are praying, nevertheless never pray. It is better to say two or three words from the heart and with humility and reverence before God than to read a lot of prayers and canons without reasoning and with speed. God listens to the internal, not the external, and listens to appeals of the heart, not verbal. Moses did not say anything with his lips, but only prayed to God with his heart when he led Israel to the Red Sea; but God said to him: Why are you crying out to Me? (Ex. 14:15). Also, Anna, Samuil’s mother, did not say anything with her lips, but only sighed with her heart and cried out to the Lord; however, her prayer was heard, and she received the desired fruit of her prayer (1 Samuel 1:13 and 20). So God listens to the heart, and not to our lips. Learn, Christian, to pray to God in spirit and in truth, and thus worship Him, and call upon Him, and honor Him. God is in every place and is always ready to listen to us; You can always and everywhere pray to Him and worship Him in spirit and truth. 6) From here you see that prayer can be without voice and external words, done with the mind and heart, and it is valid. But external prayer, consisting of only words, is not true prayer, but only a voice without reason. This is what happens when a person reads a prayer, but thinks about something else. Therefore, we must certainly listen to the words of the prayer that we read, and attach our mind and reasoning to them, and think that in prayer we stand before God and speak to Him, and we pray, and we ask for mercy from Him - and thus learn true prayer. For prayer, since it is a great good and the cause of all good things, requires a lot of work and training. And the devil tries to hinder nothing so much as our prayer, knowing that through it we receive all the benefits from God. Therefore, we must take care with all diligence that prayer comes from the heart, and that the mind and reasoning are attached to the words of the prayer being read. Christian, when you begin to pray, remember that you want to stand before God, and stand in prayer, and speak to Him, and ask for mercy from Him, just as a slave stands before his master, or a subject stands before the King, and bows to him, and asks for mercy from him. Believe and think that God is near you and before you, and thus true, heartfelt and reverent prayer will be aroused. Then you will fall before Him with humility, and bow, and sigh, and pray, and say: “Oh, Lord! Have mercy! Oh, Lord, be generous! Oh, Lord, hear!” Then both your heart and mind will agree with the words of your prayer. The Lord is close to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth (Ps. 145:18). If you hear favorable singing either in church or in another place, remember then that the Angels in heaven sing praises to our Creator and God (See Isa. 6:3). Imitate the holy angels yourself, and sing praises to your Creator and God on earth, so that in heaven you will one day be worthy to sing Him with them. Join those holy singers, and link your song with theirs. And so that your singing may be pleasing to God, follow the heavenly Orders in purity and life, and, singing with your lips, sing with your heart. Music is sweet when the voices are good and agree with each other. So a song is favorable to God when the singer lives holyly and has good morals, and harmonizes his heart with oral singing, and sings with his lips and heart. The angel's job is to sing to God. For the Angels do nothing else in heaven than constantly sing praises to God. And when we sing praises to God, we imitate the Angels and do their work. How glorious this is, you see for yourself. It is glorious to live on earth, and to follow the heavenly inhabitants, and to unite with their sweet singing and voice, and to glorify the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity. But so that our singing is in harmony with their singing, let us follow their holy life, and let us abide in love, harmony and peace among ourselves, as they abide, then our singing will be in harmony with their singing. Otherwise, the song in the mouth of a sinner is not red. I will praise the name of my God with song, I will magnify Him with praise, and this will please God more than a young calf with growing horns and hooves (Ps. 68:31-32). You see a rich meal and people eating and drinking there, or you eat and drink with them, remember the meal and supper of the kingdom of God; Remember that the pious, holy and righteous will recline at the table of the Lord in His kingdom, as it was said: Many will come from the east and west and recline with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 8:11). And the Lord also says: Behold, my servants will eat, behold, my servants will drink, behold, my servants will rejoice, behold, my servants will rejoice with gladness of heart (Isa. 65:13–14). But remember what is written: Many are called, but few are chosen (Luke 14:24); and again: Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). Live in peace so that you don’t lose joy and joy. Serve the Lord with faith and truth and endure every sorrow that comes your way without complaint, so that in the kingdom of God you will be honored to eat, drink and be merry. Endure temporary sorrow, so that you may receive the joy of eternal life. Taste the sorrow of the cross, and you will taste the sweetness in the kingdom of God. Remember me, O Lord, in Your kingdom (Luke 23:48). You look at the sun and are amazed at its beauty - remember what is written: Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13:43). You see how great the glory of God's elect will be. Beloved, says the apostle, we are now children of God; but it has not yet been revealed what we will be. We only know that when He is revealed, we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). For He will transform our lowly body so that it will be like His glorious body (Phil. 3:21). Christian! If we want to be conformed to Christ there and like him in glory, then here we must be similar and conformable to Him in life and patience. Therefore the apostle says: And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure (1 John 3:3). Everyone wants to be glorified and exalted with Christ; but to follow Christ, and to bear the cross with Christ, and few people want to endure reproach, humiliation, ridicule and sorrow. But He says: And whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me (Matthew 10:38). So, whoever wants to be with Christ in His kingdom and glory must also be with Him here, in this world, and follow Him with humility and patience, and so wear his cross. When you are in a bathhouse and you feel your body burning and burning, or you are in a fever, or in a fever, or some other serious illness, remember eternal torment, remember how those condemned in the fire of Gehenna will suffer both in soul and body forever and ever. Their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched (Mark 9:44). There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 25:30). Remember this evil, and may you not fall into it. Descend now in your mind to hell, and may you not descend later in soul and body. The memory of Gehenna will not allow one to fall into Gehenna. Every sin leads to that disaster: beware of every sin, lest it plunge you into that disaster. People there repent, but it’s too late; there people sigh, but it’s too late; people are crying there, but it’s too late. Christian! Glory to God, you have not died yet, you are still living on earth, you have not yet come to this place of torment; You can still be saved by the grace of God, and you can avoid evil and disaster. Repent now while repentance is useful; sigh and cry, so that you do not come to this sighing and crying; pray and knock on the doors of God’s mercy, so that those that open to all who truly repent will be opened to you. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy, and according to the multitude of Your compassions, cleanse my iniquity (Ps. 50:3). But the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and fornicators and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars will have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. This is the second death (Rev. 21:8). You see that small animals are inferior to large animals, small animals are inferior to large animals, small birds are inferior to large birds. Remember that this is how people, small in themselves, give in to others and give way to anger; those who reproach are not reproached, those who slander are not slandered, those who rebel are avoided, those who strike are not resisted. It is true humility and meekness that operates in them. From here you see that there is humility and meekness. And even more so then humility and meekness are learned when equal yields to equal; and although he may resist the rebel, he does not want this, and gives in to him. Greater humility and meekness are shown when the greater yields to the lesser, and does not resist him either in deed or in word. Oh, the lovely sight of a tall man yielding to a low and vile man! Such a person is outwardly high, but within himself is low; outwardly great, but small in heart; outwardly rich, but inside himself poor and wretched. This lofty baseness is despised by the world, but exalted by God. Everyone who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 18:14). Thus did the holy David yield to his opponents; and although he could repay them evil for evil, he did not want to. The entire Holy Gospel preaches the humility and meekness of our Savior: He yielded to all His enemies and detractors with all meekness. He is as humble and meek as He is great. That is why He commands us to learn humility and meekness from Him: Learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:29). Not so crazy pride. She wants to show herself off everywhere, doesn’t want to give in to anyone, but either in word or deed she resists. From there, quarrels, mutual abuse, slander and fights arise. One says to the other: “You are a rogue, or a spendthrift,” or something else. Pride answers: “You are like that yourself.” This is what cattle, animals and birds do when they see themselves as equal to others: they do not yield to them, but resist them; That’s why they fight until one overpowers the other. These senseless brutes are followed by proud and senseless people, who do not want to give in to each other, but like brutes they quarrel and fight, and hurt each other either by deed or by word. So, you see, man, that there is an unregenerate man, and not renewed by God’s grace. Whatever pride and anger there is in cattle and beasts, such is present in him too. But it is written: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5). To him be praise, honor and glory forever and ever! Amen. You might be interested in: