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We often hear people telling people on various occasions: “Look around”! A Christian who confesses God and hears His holy word, and knows that there will be eternal torment for sinners, and eternal life for the righteous! It is all the more fitting for you to say this word: “Look around.” Having renounced Satan and all his evil deeds at Baptism, have you turned to him again with your evil and depraved life? "Look around"! You promised and swore an oath to serve faithfully and faithfully Christ the Lord, who died for you and rose again, but instead of that, don’t you serve sin and the world? "Look around"! “Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin (John 8:34). You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). You were then washed, sanctified, justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God, but were you not and are you not defiled again by lawless deeds? "Look around"! The proverb fits this: “A dog returns to his vomit, and a pig that has been washed goes to wallow in the mud” (2 Peter 2:22). Called by the Word of God and renewed by holy Baptism to eternal life and heavenly blessings, are you not thinking about earthly things? Aren't you looking for how to become famous, get rich, and be honored in this world? Are you not uniting your heart with the vanity of this world? Are you not following the path of the wicked to destruction? "Look around"! “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many go there; for strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few find it,” says the Lord (Matthew 7:13–14). God is in every place, looks at us all, hears all our words, sees our deeds and thoughts, and tests our hearts and wombs, as His holy word preaches and our holy faith teaches. How do you walk before the omnipresent and all-seeing God? How do you speak before the One who hears your every word? How do you do and think before the One who sees your every deed and thought, and writes everything in His book, and on the day of His Judgment will announce it to you? What thoughts about Himself do you harbor in your heart, do they agree with the word of God and the holy faith? Look around! You confess the terrible and holy name of God, call in prayer and sing, but don’t you desecrate those lips with which you confess and sing to God, don’t you defile, I say, with foul language, slander, slander, crazy words, blasphemy, condemnation, flattery, lies with all sorts of rotten and idle words? Look around! You raise your hands to the Great and Holy God, but do you not defame them with theft, robbery and all kinds of untruth? Do you not have hatred and malice against your neighbor? Do you want to take revenge on him and harm him in some way? Look around! You are approaching the holy and life-giving Mysteries of Christ. Oh, how great this thing is! How great is the goodness of God! How great is the respect for man! Man, earth and ashes touch the Body and Blood of the Divine! “Bless the Lord, my soul!” ( Ps.103:1 ) Beloved Christian! How are you approaching this great and terrible Sacrament? With what faith? With what fear? With what heart? With what lips? With what hands? Look around! For this is Fire, burning the unworthy. “Let man examine himself, and in this way let him eat of this Bread and drink from this Cup. For whoever eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks condemnation for himself, not considering the Body of the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:28-29). God is your Highest Benefactor, greater than Who there was not, is not, and cannot be. Just as He created you from nothing, He gives you everything and every good thing. We cannot live even a moment without His goodness. The sun, moon and stars that shine for you are His goodness. The air that preserves your life is His goodness. The land on which you live, which bears fruit for you and your livestock, is His good. The cattle that serve you are His goodness. The water that waters you and your animals, and the fish that live in it, are His goodness. The house in which you calm down and are preserved from storms and bad weather in the air is His goodness. The food and drink with which your weak body is strengthened and cooled is His goodness. The fire and wood on which your food is cooked and with which your house is warmed are His goods. The clothing that covers and warms your naked body is His goodness. He gives you all this and more with His invisible, omnipotent and generous hand, and gives it out of one goodness and love for you. His nature is such that it cannot help but do good. You see His love for you, but do you feel mutual love for Him? Love is nothing other than being rewarded with love. You receive benefits from Him, but do you remember the Benefactor and thank the Benefactor? Look around! Ingratitude towards a person from whom we receive little good and do not thank him is hard. Ingratitude to God is incomparably more serious when we accept everything and every good thing from Him, but are ungrateful to Him. Without love there can be no gratitude to Him. And he is ungrateful to Him who does not please His holy will. His highest and incomprehensible love for us was revealed in the fact that His Only Begotten Son, by His good pleasure, came to us to seek and save us who were lost (Matthew 18:11). About this love, Christ Our Lord Himself says: “For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Poor sinner! For your sin, with which you dishonored and angered the Righteous and Infinite God, like a dead man cast into the dust, you should have died an eternal death in hell, and endlessly drink the bitter cup of God’s wrath, and be considered the same as Satan and his Angels, and suffer in unquenchable fire. These are the fruits of sin: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). The Humane God, out of His goodness and love for us, did not allow you to do this. Glory to His goodness, glory to His love for mankind, glory to His generosity and mercy! I didn’t let you do that, I say. Whom? Apostate and His enemy. He had mercy on you, had mercy on you, loved you, sent His only begotten Son to you to save you. He came to you, the Creator to His creation, the Lord to His indecent servant, the Holy and Great God to the sinner. The King of Heaven appeared on earth, and became accessible to the Cherubim and Seraphim, unapproachable to poor outcast people and sinners, became human in a Body similar to you, lived on earth, was among sinners, like light between darkness, “and the darkness did not comprehend Him” (John 1:5); I worked, I was sick, I cried, I suffered and I died for you. See, sinner, what God has created for you. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, that he hath visited his people, and wrought deliverance for them, and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David” (Luke 1:68–69). What more can you expect from God, sinner, when He did not spare His only Son for your sake? What love, what kindness could be greater than this! Do you remember this great work of God, which can no longer happen? Do you remember this deed, by which you were delivered from eternal death and hell, in which your eternal life and all eternal bliss consist? Do you remember this, and from the bottom of your heart do you thank your Benefactor and Redeemer God? Look around! Do you truly, and not hypocritically, honor the Lord who so honors you? Look around! Do you keep His holy commandments, without which there cannot be love for Him? Look around! “Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, he loves Me... He who does not love Me does not keep My words,” says the Lord (John 14:21, 24). “And Christ died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again for them” (2 Cor. 5:15). God, who created you as well as every person, loves you, and out of His love gives His blessings to everyone and to you, and has shown such a merciful and man-loving wonderful Providence in the matter of salvation both for everyone and for you. God, I say, who so loved you and is your Benefactor, wants and commands that you love your neighbor, that is, every person, as you love yourself. Do you satisfy the holy desire of Him who loved you and your Benefactor? Do you please His holy will? Are you diligently obedient to Him? Do you love your God-loved neighbor? Are you doing to him what you don’t want to do to yourself? Do you give him a helping hand in his needs, what do you want for yourself? Look around! The time of our life is short, and it passes like passing water, and what is lost does not return, like a spoken word. How do you spend it, in what? Is it not idleness? Isn't it in the hustle and bustle? Is it not about festivities and feasts? Is it not about gaining honor, fame, wealth? Look around! Time has been given to you by God for repentance, and not for carnal pleasure. Are you spending it the way God wants? Look around! A person can find everything in this world, but he cannot find lost time. Death follows a person along an invisible path, and abducts him when he does not expect him, and where he does not expect him, and in a way he does not expect him to. Our death is known to us and unknown: it is known that we will die; unknown, because we don’t know when, where and how we will die. The longer we live, the more our days decrease and we approach the end of our life. Christian! Do you remember this terrible hour, at which all the saints looked and cried - the hour in which everyone should go either to blissful or painful eternity - and are you preparing for this with true repentance? Look around! Whatever that hour finds you in is the same in which you will appear before the Judgment of God. Blessed is he who remembers this hour. “Tell me, O Lord, my end and the number of my days: what it is, so that I may understand what remains for me. Behold, You have measured my days and my composition with spans as nothing before You. Truly, everything is vanity - every person who lives. Truly, man walks like a ghost; In vain he fusses, collects treasure and does not know for whom he is collecting it." ( Ps.39:5-7 ). It is fitting for all of us to appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ. Before that Judgment, the Judgment of God, and not human, you too will appear. There will be a just and strict test of our deeds, words and thoughts. Everything that we have done in our entire life will be obvious there, and it will be revealed to the whole world, and everyone will be convicted according to their conscience. There, kings and their subjects, masters and slaves, parents and children, shepherds and their people, noble and low, rich and wretched, will stand side by side, and everyone will pay an answer for himself. The sins that the sinner here will atone for through repentance, contrition of heart and tears will no longer appear there. The sins of the unrepentant sinner, whatever he has done, in word, or deed, or thought, will be obvious to the whole world. Then it will be said about him: “Here is the man and his deeds!” There, all the gathered people will be divided into two parts: some will stand on the right side of the Righteous Judge, and the King of Glory, the Lord, will call them into His eternal kingdom; others will stand on the left side of this Judge, and he will send them into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life” (Matthew 25:46). Christian! Do you remember this terrible day, and do you have a burning lamp and oil in a vessel, and are you preparing to meet that coming Judge? Look around! Look around you too, beloved shepherd, how are you shepherding the flock of Christ? Christ the Lord has entrusted you with shepherding His sheep, sheep not dumb, but verbal, Christian souls, redeemed by His holy Blood. How do you graze them? Do you feed them with the food of the word of God? Do you walk before them in the image of good deeds? Are you showing them the way to salvation? Do you protect them from spiritual wolves, demons? Look around! Chief and ruler, how do you deal with the people of God entrusted to you? Do you care about them and think about the common good, which is what your position and the power of your oath requires of you? Aren't you looking for your own nasty gain? Look around! Judge, how do you judge, how and whom do you acquit, and whom do you accuse? Look around! Master, how do you deal with slaves and peasants, people like you? Look around! Slave, how and with what conscience do you serve your master? Look around! Father, how do you raise your children? What are you teaching them? Are you not pouring the poison of temptation into their young hearts instead of sound teaching and instruction? Look around! Child, how do you honor the father who gave birth to you? Do you pay tribute to your parent and nurturer? Look around! Husband, do you remain faithful to your wife, and wife, do you remain faithful to your husband? Look around! Merchant, how do you trade and how do you sell? Look around! Please, every Christian, look around, what and how are you doing, saying and thinking now? Everything you do, say and think now will appear before you in that public disgrace. Don't be neglectful of yourself, beloved. God wants to save you: let your desire be done, and you will be saved. Whoever wants something diligently seeks it diligently. Look around you too, my soul, how you live, how you treat yourself, how you act, say and think, what you love and what you hate, in what you calm down, in what you are comforted and delighted, in what you are upset and what you are sad about, and in what you place your hope. “Look, hear me, O Lord my God! Enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep in death, lest my enemy say, “Be strong against him” (Ps. 12:4-5). “Take heed therefore, and walk carefully, not as fools, but as wise, making use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of God is” (Eph. 5:15–17). Translation by P. Yungerov – Editorial office of “The ABC of Faith” You might be interested in: