127. Сокровище

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 may be 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 like a shadow and that a person from birth to death is a wanderer and traveler going to the heavenly Fatherland. And he admonishes 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 neither wealth, nor honor, nor glory, nor the other treasures of this world, as the sons of the age do. But he always looks and strives for eternal bliss, and he diligently desires and tries to obtain it. That is why he always sighs to his Creator, so that he can receive His grace, 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 defeat 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 cases that lead to sin, he avoids it, and tries to preserve his clear conscience in everything. It is hard for such a person to sin, and he deigns better to die than to sin, knowing that every sin offends the majesty of God, 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, 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 brings about 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 Compassionate 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 beloved 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, all-loving Nature and the most supreme Good, from Whom all blessings and blessings flow, like streams from an ever-flowing source, and like all creatures and people, so he is created and, fallen, redeemed by Him for eternal bliss. Thus, the grace of God, enlightening the human heart, ignites in it the fire of God’s love. Feeling such love in his heart, a person pours out words of love: I will love You, O Lord, my strength (Ps. 17:2). And one more thing: What is in heaven for me? And without You, what do I want on earth? My heart and my flesh fail, O God of my heart and my portion, O God, forever (Ps. 72:25–26). He who truly loves God, neither on earth nor in heaven, desires anything but God alone. Such a soul cries out with the prophet: As a deer longs for springs of water, so longs my soul for You, O God! My soul thirsted for the Mighty, Living God (Ps. 42:2-3). For such a person, to be with God and in hell is heaven; to be without God in heaven is torment. Therefore, such a person tries to please God in everything, and, seeing many weaknesses and shortcomings in himself, grieves and is sad. And loving God, he loves his neighbor, because God loves him and commands him to 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 before the judgment of God and be justified, 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 sigh 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). “God, turn away Your face from my sins,” and turn on the face of Your Christ, my Redeemer, Jesus, Who for my sake, a sinner, suffered and died. In You Jesus, my Holy One, I will be justified. 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 fervently prays and cries out: “Oh, Lord, have mercy! Oh, Lord, be generous! Oh, 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 Good and Lover of Mankind, despite the fact that he is a sinner and His humiliator, gives him countless of His benefits. Realizing this goodness and love of God and his own meanness and unworthiness, man heartily thanks God as his Highest Benefactor, bows his heartfelt knees before Him and falls, and although not with his lips, but with his heart cries out to Him: “Who am I, Lord, that You give me such Your blessings? I am a sinner, I am a creature who has sinned before You and upset You, and who sins before You every day, but You do not leave me even like that, but You favor me with Your goodness and mercy.” God! What is man, that You have revealed yourself to him, or the son of man, that You think about him. Man is like vanity (Ps. 143:3-4), and so on. Bless, my soul, the Lord, and all that is within me, His holy name. Bless the Lord, my soul, and do not forget all His rewards (Ps. 102:1-2). For a grateful heart always brings the blessings bestowed by its benefactor before the eyes of its soul, and, looking at them and at its own unworthiness, it diligently thanks its benefactor. A sign of an ungrateful heart is forgetfulness of good deeds, as it is written about the ungrateful Israelites: And they forgot His good deeds and the miracles that He showed them (Ps. 77:11). God's grace turns a person away from this evil, and at all times reminds him of God's blessings, and of the fact that he should keep them in memory and diligently thank God, the Benefactor, for them, and admit his unworthiness. 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 thus 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. Therefore, such a God-fearing soul everywhere and always, secretly and openly, in front of people and without people, outside and inside, acts carefully and guards against all evil. She is surrounded and contained by the fear of God and remains motionless against any evil. And if some demonic temptation or evil thought comes upon her, she is horrified by this and cries out to God: “Lord, help me!”, and so she stands and fights against evil. So the fear of God is the root of all good things. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord (Ps. 110:10). Who is wise? He who acts carefully everywhere and always has the invisible God before him as if he were visible. See that you walk carefully, not as fools, but as wise (Eph. 5:15). The beginning of this wisdom is the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord within a person is taught by God's grace (See Ps. 33:12). The same grace of God teaches a person to rejoice in God, his Savior, and creates 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 resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 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, diminished and low heart. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb. Do not turn me away from Your Face 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). You might be interested in: