ЖЕРТВА БОГУ

God save you from sparing your material property as a sacrifice to the Lord, or to His Most Pure Mother, or to other saints of God and thus preferring substance to spirit; see that your wealth does not become your destruction. You must firmly believe that instead of perishable blessings, the Lord or His saints will reward you with incorruptible ones, instead of temporary ones - with eternal ones, and consider spiritual blessings, for example, spiritual light, forgiveness of sins, the gift of living faith, strong hope and unfeigned love, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, infinitely higher than material gifts. Joyfully squander your gains as sacrifices to the Lord and His saints; If you send them through someone’s hands, believe that they will arrive according to their belongings, and if people hide the Lord’s sacrifice, the Lord your God will exact it from them, and not a single mite of yours will be wasted, but will bring you a gift commensurate with the faith and disposition of your heart from the Lord, who is the God of gifts, especially for those who bring their heartfelt gifts to Him (6). Sacrifice your heart to God, give it entirely to the Almighty, deny yourself, all sinful movements: malice, hatred, pride, disobedience and self-will, envy, ill will, gloating, stinginess, love of money, gluttony, fornication, theft, deception, laziness, etc. - and constantly forcing ourselves to goodness when we are embittered, insulted, to prayer for enemies, meekness, humility, kindness, sincere goodwill, generosity, non-covetousness, abstinence, chastity, almsgiving, almsgiving, truth and righteousness, hard work, obedience, etc. It is difficult to overcome passions that have become, as it were, our natural members (“mortify your earthly members” - Col. 3:5), but with unceasing attention to yourself and with diligent, unceasing prayer with abstinence, with the help of God it is possible to overcome and eradicate them (6). You might be interested in: