ВОЖДЕЛЕНИЕ

“Keep your heart with all your guard, for from it are the springs of life” (Prov. 4:23). Take care of your heart especially in the sense of not allowing earthly, passionate lusts to reach it, for even one instant lust defiles the soul and separates it from God. Try constantly to ensure that it gravitates towards heaven, and not towards earth, towards God, and not towards Belial, so that it desires incorruptibility, love and virtue, meekness and humility, simplicity and gentleness, and not earthly, although brilliant and sweet, decay. We are in constant danger from earthly lusts: a sinful person clings to everything forbidden. Protect your heart from anger, malice and envy, voluptuousness, pride, arrogance and exaltation of yourself over others! (10). Sinful thoughts and desires are swift, like scorching lightning, or like a sudden strong wind, shaking the soul, like reeds, or like a stormy stream, drowning the soul, like a church built on sand, or like a dirty, stinking wave, filling the whole soul with stench and stench. May every Christian beware of all sin, voluntary or involuntary, and may he establish his spiritual feet on the stone of faith - Christ God; let him pray unceasingly, and let him always bring secret and open repentance to God, and let him abhor sin in all its countless manifestations, let him despise the voluptuousness of the flesh as a deadly poison, and let him regard gold and silver and everything precious and shiny as nothing; let him despise human glory, this transient and harmful glory, which undermines the soul like a worm; may he seek incorruptible blessings and may he always strive to have Christ in his heart, this Treasure is vital and all-sufficient for all eternity. “The thoughts of evil are an abomination to the Lord” (Prov. 15:26). And instantaneous carnal lust is betrayal of the Lord and the abomination of idolatry. This is because the soul is a simple being, a spirit, and in an instant it inclines either towards truth or towards untruth, and becomes like either God or the Devil, which is why the Apostle says: “Imitate evil, but imitate good” (3 John 1:11) (10). Protect your heart in every possible way from sinful carnal lusts, which bring with them defilement, confusion, darkness, slavery, corruption. Sin creeps in most conveniently through our carnal lust, for the flesh loves sweetness, and corruption very easily creeps in through sweetness (10). You might be interested in: