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Although the soil on which the seed is sown will be good, it cannot produce fruit if it is not warmed by the warmth of the sun and watered by rain. So, although the seed of the Word of God falls on a good heart, it will not bear any fruit if it is not warmed by the warmth of God’s grace and watered with dew from above. Therefore, just as sown seeds need sunlight and rain to bear fruit, so the heard Word of God, so that it is not without fruit, needs God’s grace, warming and watering. That is why Saint David says: I walked along the path of Your commandments when You enlarged my heart (Ps. 119:32). Therefore, we always need to sigh to the Lord, so that His grace will warm and irrigate our hearts. We demand God's grace every hour and every minute. Without it, like babies who cannot walk yet, we will fall and lie there. Your mercy will follow me all the days of my life (Ps. 23:6). The grace of God, like a beautiful garment, covers the soul. Like a boat on a river, so is a person in life. We see that the boat floats down the river by itself, but cannot float against the current or up the river. But if she needs to go up the river, she needs strong rowers or a sail moving her with a tailwind. So is man. According to the flesh, according to whims and passions and according to his own evil will, like a corrupt person, he lives by himself and comfortably and easily, just as a ship floats down the river by itself. The human mind diligently inclines toward evil from its youth (Gen. 8:21). For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, blasphemy (Matthew 15:19). Our passions and whims are born with us, and therefore it is easy and convenient for us to follow them and create their will, like sailing with the flow in a ship. But to live against our own evil will, and to conquer it, and to subjugate the will of God, and to stand and fight against whims and passions, and to crucify and kill them, and to live so piously and Christianly for ourselves is as inconvenient and impossible for us as it is for a ship to sail against the current on a river without rowers and sails. From this we see how many books have been written that prohibit the striving of passions; How much preachers work and thunder against the passionate flesh with their words: they frighten man with the judgment of God, and confuse and restrain him with the fear of temporary and eternal execution - and the man himself, hearing the word, is horrified, and embarrassed, and often repents. But, however, at the behest of passions and whims it descends, like a ship rushing downstream. We, Christians, have such a corrupted nature, man has fallen into such meanness and damnation through sin, this wonderful beauty - God's image - has come to such dishonor through the cunning of the devil! What should we do? Living according to whims and passions is contrary to Christianity, the holy faith, and the Word of God, and this is a clear misfortune and destruction. We cannot stand and fight against the desire of passions, pacify them and defeat them on our own. It is absolutely necessary for supernatural power to help us, and to move us, like a ship against the current, and to constantly excite and strengthen us, and to arouse and overcome the desire of passions, and to move our heart towards sighing and heartfelt prayer and other Christian virtues. All this is done by God's grace living in man. With her a person can do anything, without her he can do nothing. God's grace moves a person and admonishes him at any time, and helps him to stand against passions, and overcome them, and live like a Christian, just as oarsmen move a ship against the flow of a river. At every time, every hour and every minute we need God's grace. God's grace is the life of our souls; without God's grace the soul cannot be alive. Therefore, we are commanded to pray, ask, seek and knock (see Matt. 7:7). So, Christians, we recognize our corruption and poverty, for we go down by ourselves, not up, and, having learned, let us humble ourselves before the Lord - may He give us His grace. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (1 Pet. 5:5). The sons of this age have their treasure, and Christians also have their treasure. The sons of this age have treasure - perishable wealth, gold, silver, copper and other substances. Christians have a treasure - God's grace, and this treasure is heavenly, spiritual, abiding in their hearts, as the apostle wrote: but we carry this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the superabundant power is attributed to God, and not to us (2 Cor. 4:7). People who have perishable treasure fill all their needs and what they lack with its help. If they don’t have bread, they will buy bread. If they don’t have clothes, they get their own clothes, and so on. So God’s grace, the heavenly treasure that lives in Christian hearts, fills all their needs and spiritual shortcomings. Man by himself is blind - God's grace enlightens the eyes of his heart, shows him the vanity of this world, the brevity of temporary life and the longness of eternity; shows that everything that exists in this world passes away like a shadow, and that a person from birth to death is a wanderer and traveler going to the heavenly fatherland. And he exhorts him at all times to beware of everything and to touch everything in this world with fear, and to use it for the sake of need, and not for the sake of pleasing the flesh, and to beware of the temptations of this world. Therefore, such a soul does not seek in this world either wealth, or honor, or glory, or other treasures of this world, as the sons of this age do, but always looks and strives for eternal bliss and diligently desires and tries to obtain it, therefore it always sighs to its Creator, so that His grace can be received and there with all the elect, praise and sing Him forever. Man is weak and powerless against the desire of passions and sin to stand and overcome them - God's grace strengthens him, and helps him to stand in this important feat, and shows him the abomination of passions and sin, and admonishes him at all times to beware of this evil. Therefore, such a person is extremely careful of all sin and avoids cases that lead to sin, and tries to keep his conscience pure in everything. It is hard for such a person to sin, and he deigns better to die than to sin, knowing that with every sin the greatness of God is offended and the conscience is irritated and worried, which is unbearable for a pious soul. A person does not see many sins in himself: who can understand the Fall (Ps. 18:13)? God's grace exposes such sins in him. Everything is sin that is done against the will of God. Therefore, sadness, melancholy and sighing arise in the human heart, and sometimes torment is felt. Therefore, the heart is contrite, and it spews out its signs, hot tears, and cries, and sobs, as if it had lost something great. And tears themselves come to such a heart instead of cooling and consolation. Thus, the grace of God crushes the human heart and heals, saddens and comforts, kills and gives life, and arranges everything for our benefit. The same grace of God shows a person not only his own, but also that of the entire human race, wretchedness and poverty. Therefore, condolences arise in the human heart for other people, for all people are of the same nature and all have the same weakness and damnation. Therefore, a pious soul sighs and cries not only about its own poverty, but also about the poverty of other people. Man himself does not know and does not have true repentance and regret for sins - God’s grace arranges true repentance and regret in him. True repentance and pity is to regret and be pained by sins not because of one’s destruction, but because of the fact that we offend and anger the Most Good God, Who is the gracious Father and eternal Goodness and Love. Man, realizing his meanness and God's incomprehensible greatness and His enormous love for himself and for everyone, is very sad and hurt in his heart that he, earth and ashes (Sir. 10, 9; 13, 31), and loved by God, has insulted and angered his lover. His Angels, and Archangels, and all the heavenly Powers with fear and love honor, sing to Him and worship, but he, vile, earth and ashes, did not honor Him and did not listen. Because of this, a person feels enormous sadness in his heart and is stung by it, like an arrow. And this is sorrow for God’s sake, which produces unchanging repentance leading to salvation (2 Cor. 7:10). God's grace makes this sadness possible. He who has such sorrow will grieve and grieve, even if there was no Gehenna. Man does not have true and heartfelt love for God on his own - God's grace arouses love in his heart, showing him that God is the uncreated, beginningless, endless, unchangeable, ever-present 4 , all-loving Nature and the most supreme Good, from Whom all blessings and blessings, like streams from an ever-flowing source, flow, and like all creatures and people, so he was created and the fallen one is redeemed by Him for eternal bliss. Thus, the grace of God, enlightening the human heart, ignites in it the fire of God’s love... A person does not have true humility in himself - God's grace shows him his poverty, squalor, poverty, wretchedness, meanness and insignificance, and so, recognizing himself, a person humbles himself and does not rely on himself in anything, surrendering only to the omnipotence, wisdom, goodness and mercy of God. Man does not have truth in himself with which he could appear and be justified before the judgment of God, but he sees in himself a sinner for whom it is in no way possible to withstand the judgment of God - the grace of God consoles him and exhorts him for the sake of truth to groan to God, and in Christ, who died and rose again for sinners, to seek justification. Such a person with the publican cries out to God: God! be merciful to me, a sinner (Luke 18:13)… A person does not have true and heartfelt prayer within himself - God’s grace teaches him what to pray for and arouses in him true and heartfelt prayer. And just as the smoke of fragrant powder placed on a burning coal rises, so aroused by the grace of God, prayer from the heart rises and ascends to God. Then the person briefly but earnestly prays and cries out: “Oh Lord, have mercy! Oh Lord, be generous! O Lord, hear and save!” Such words are words of the heart and are spoken with the lips. These words are spoken by the mouth out of the abundance of the heart. Such a prayer, although short, passes through the heavens and enters the ears of the Lord Almighty. Man does not know how to truly and sincerely thank God - God’s grace teaches him this, showing him the countless blessings of God given and given to him, which he, vile, wretched, beggar and unworthy of anything, is awarded freely and without any merit of his own from the goodness of God. What does a sinner deserve except one execution? But God, the most kind and loving of mankind, despite the fact that he is a sinner and His humiliator, gives him countless of His benefits... Man does not have the fear of God in himself - God's grace teaches him the fear of the Lord, presenting to him before the eyes of his heart God's greatness, omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience, and so exhorts him to live carefully and with fear, to beware of all sin in words, deeds and thoughts, for this angers God and the person who sins is deprived of God's mercy; and this is how he teaches him everywhere and always to address himself before the omnipresent and all-seeing God, as children address themselves before their father, and slaves before their master, and subjects before their king, so that they do not dare to do anything indecent... The same grace of God teaches a person to rejoice in God, his Savior, and instills in his heart true, spiritual, heavenly joy, and a certain exclamation, and play, and peace, and peace in his conscience - and all this is a foretaste of eternal life and, as it were, grains from a heavenly meal falling on the human heart. The same grace of God changes a person and makes him loving, merciful, compassionate, meek, so that he is at peace with his enemies, and regrets, and sympathizes with them, and is patient with them. God's grace sometimes so inflames the human heart with love that he would like to embrace everyone without exception with the embrace of his love and see everyone saved. This and so on is the action of God’s grace living in the human heart. This is the treasure of Christians, which is inside them, and not outside, and which they carry with them everywhere and always. So they are poor and rich: poor in themselves, but rich in the mercy of God. And although they have this heavenly treasure within themselves, they nevertheless recognize and recognize themselves as poor and wretched, and they always desire and ask for it from their Creator, they constantly hunger and thirst for truth. God's grace, which abides in them, humbles them. Let us recognize, Christians, our poverty and the riches of God’s grace, and let us humble ourselves before our Lord—may He give us His grace. Because God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (1 Pet. 5:5). It is convenient for a humble heart, freed from the love of the world and the desires of the flesh, to accept God’s grace, just as it is convenient for an empty vessel to accept water or another substance. Water always flows down from the mountains, and God's grace descends from the heavenly mountains into a free, humble and self-abasing heart. Without grace, the soul is like parched earth. You see that during the day everything is clearly visible and everyone distinguishes between harm and benefit, ditch and path, white from black and one thing from another. Understand that in the same way, one enlightened by the light of Christ’s grace sees everything clearly with the eyes of his soul, recognizes good from evil, virtue from vice: he sees spiritual harm - and avoids it, recognizes vices in the soul - and cleanses them with repentance and tears with the help of God. You see that there is darkness and gloom in the sky, when the sun goes down and you can’t see anything: you can’t tell white from black, you can’t tell where the ditch is, where it’s level; where it is dangerous, where it is safe – it is impossible to know. Consider what darkness there is in the soul and what darkness surrounds it when it does not have the grace of Christ in itself. Such a soul does not recognize evil from good, does not recognize harm from its benefit, walks and touches like a blind person. This incident teaches you to pray to Christ, the true Light, so that the light of His grace may shine in your soul. The earth, although the seed is sown on it, will not grow anything if there is no moisture. So is the human heart: although it hears the Word of God, it cannot produce fruit worthy of the Word of God if it does not have the moisture of God’s grace. Therefore, we are commanded to pray so earnestly about this: ask... seek... knock (Matthew 7:7), says the Lord. This convinces us to earnestly pray to God and ask Him for grace to give us ears to hear His word and a heart to understand His will (Isa. 6:10). Without this we cannot do anything, since we have a deeply corrupted heart, so that even having heard the Word of God, we cannot understand and deepen it in our hearts, and having understood, we cannot create, therefore, at every moment we demand the grace of God, helping us in the work of piety. When the fire touches incense or some other fragrant powder, immediately smoke appears and a pleasant fragrance rises. This is exactly what happens when the grace of the Holy Spirit touches the human heart: then sighing and true prayer awakens in such a heart, like a fragrance excited by fire, and ascends to the heights of the Heavenly Father, and finds grace and mercy from Him. A naked man is ashamed of himself, and others are ashamed and disgusted of him. So is the soul that does not have the grace of God covering it. Satan, our enemy, like a thief, has exposed us and stripped us of the robe of God's grace and salvation. Therefore, our ancestors, exposed by his wickedness, recognized their nakedness, which they had not seen before their fall, and began to be ashamed of themselves, which was proof and evidence of their inner nakedness. Christ, the Son of God, seeing our nakedness, from which God and His holy Angels turned away, had mercy on us, came to earth to us, naked, poor, wretched and destitute, clothed ourselves in our flesh and became like us in everything except sin, so that we, naked, soiled and defiled, could be washed with His Blood and clothed with the pure robe of His righteousness. and thus present to the purest eyes of His Heavenly Father. Iron is softened by fire, and the more it burns, the softer it becomes. So it is with man: by nature, every man is cruel, like iron; the anger of sin has hardened the heart and made it hard, like iron. Therefore, a heart that is not renewed by the grace of the Holy Spirit is called stony in Holy Scripture. I will pluck out the heart of stone from their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh (Ezek. 11:19), says the Lord. Therefore, by nature every person is very disobedient and disobedient to God. Words, threats and exhortations can do nothing if God’s grace does not move them: like cold iron, struck by a hammer, it is adamant and unchangeable. But when the fire of God’s grace touches the heart and warms it, it begins to soften; and the more it burns with this heavenly fire, the more it softens, turns red and becomes purer. Then such a person turns away from the world and everything that is beautiful, pleasant, cheerful and sweet in it and considers for nothing what he previously considered great and dear, and strives for the heavenly and eternal with all his heart and shows the most willing obedience to everything that God favors. Farmers wait for the early and late rain on their fields, without which the fields are barren, no matter how much they work on them. Likewise, our work is in vain if the rain of God’s grace does not fall on the fields of our hearts. We must also work and wait for the rain of God’s mercy, and pray to God to send us the dew of His goodness from above and water the fields of our hearts with it. What sensual light is to our eyes, so is God's grace to our soul. When the light shines, a person sees everything clearly: he sees the path, the ditch, the harmful - and takes care of this, distinguishes white from black and one thing from another. Thus, when God's grace enlightens the soul, the soul knows and sees everything well; sees the wonderful works of God, His providence and destinies, recognizes good from evil, virtue from vice, and sees spiritual benefit and seeks it, sees harm and avoids it. The sinner, while he is content with natural reason and his imaginary wisdom, thinks that he is doing well and is following the right path, but when the dawn of God’s grace dawns on him, he recognizes his deception and delusion, regrets, repents and laments that he lost time in vain, all his work was useless, and weeps with the prophet: my days have disappeared like smoke; My days have gone away like a shadow (Ps. 101:4,12). The soul, having lost the grace-filled presence of God as its life, is dead no differently than a body that has lost its soul remains dead. God prompts such a soul: arise, sleeper, and rise from the dead (Eph. 5:14)... Just as a dead body does not move, does not feel and does not do anything, so the soul, deprived of the grace of God, does not move, does not feel and does not do anything spiritually, but when the body comes to life, it begins to do everything. So the sinner, when he comes to life by the power and grace of God, begins his spiritual movement, begins to feel spiritually, and act spiritually. The soul, enlivened by God's grace, produces spiritual actions: it sees God by faith, touches by faith, hears by faith God speaking, tastes and smells with love and deeds pleasing to Him, and tries to do. Penetrate into the depths of your heart - and you will see what evil and disaster lies there. This evil shows itself with evil thoughts, like an evil tree with its evil fruits. From within, from the human heart, come evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, theft, covetousness, malice, deceit, lasciviousness, an envious eye, blasphemy, pride, madness (Mark 7:21-22), says Christ. And what is hidden inside, in the heart, comes out, like from a boiling cauldron, what cannot be contained, is ejected through external actions. From here come quarrels, enmities, curses, slander, blasphemy, flattery, deceptions, ridicule, reproaches; hence the fruits of anger: revenge, retribution, bloodshed, murder; hence theft, extortion, perjury, insult to the poor, shedding tears of widows and orphans. The heart spews out stinking odors and its fruits: adultery 5, fornication, adultery, foul language, indecent speech, shameful words and deeds, shameless jokes, bestial sensuality - in a word, every abomination and every evil comes from the heart, just as a sown seed arises from the ground, and is fulfilled by deed itself, if the power of the fear of God does not will be prevented. But - that human damnation multiplies - a person will not recognize this evil until God enlightens him with His grace. Many people dream about themselves; against them the apostle says: whoever thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, deceives himself (Gal. 6:3). But such, when they look around by the grace of God, they will see that they are nothing, and everyone will admit: I have gone astray, like a lost sheep (Ps. 119:176). And this misfortune and damnation are common to all people. We must recognize and acknowledge this - and thus humble ourselves. Without the grace of God, man cannot create anything pleasing. God works in us both to will and to act according to His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13), says the apostle. And Christ says: without Me you can do nothing (John 15:5)... For man in spiritual matters without God’s grace is like a withered branch that cannot bear any fruit. Just as a branch, says Christ, cannot bear fruit by itself unless it is on the vine, so neither can you unless you are in Me (John 15:4). So, to God, who produces in us both the will and the doing of good, all praise and glory befits, and shame on the face and humility befits a person, for he cannot not only do, but also will, nothing good without God. God's grace is the life of our souls. Without the grace of God our soul cannot be alive. For just as our body is our soul, so our soul lives by God’s grace. Always pray and sigh to the Lord, so that He will give you His grace and keep you in it. We demand the grace of God every minute, therefore sigh often from the depths of your heart: create a pure heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit away from me. Reward me with the joy of Your salvation, and strengthen me with the Lord’s Spirit (Ps. 50:12-14). Ever-present - eternally existing, eternally alive. Student activity is debauchery, lewdness.