Блаженство

Do you see how spiritually blind a poor person is! What don’t people do for the sake of temporary and soon-to-be-perishing profits? What kind of work and troubles do they accept? But nothing is painful or inconvenient for them to get what they want. They are so strongly motivated, encouraged and approved by their undoubted hope for the desired good, although they are often deceived. For a person does not receive everything that he wants and hopes to receive, since our temporary well-being lies in God’s power, and not in human power, and he gives it to whomever he wants. However, people, even without perfect hope, still search, and carefully, for the good that they see with their bodily eyes. But eternal bliss, before which all glory, wealth, honor and the kingdom of earth are like nothing, is either carelessly sought, or has ceased to be sought at all. Oh, if the inner eye of a person would open, and in one blink of an eye he would see the future glory prepared for God’s chosen ones, he would strive for it as if thirsty for a spring of water, and nothing could turn him away from this. Believe, Christian, that honor, wealth, glory, sweetness and pleasures of this world, like stinking carrion, disgust him, and even suffering and torment will not be able to stop and restrain his aspirations. Christ's saving incarnation and suffering teaches us everything. In Adam we were deprived of future bliss and fell into eternal disaster, but Christ, the Son of God, being so great and lofty that there is no one greater and higher than Him, for God exists, for this reason He came into the world and suffered, in order to save fallen man from eternal disaster and return to eternal bliss. From this alone we can, Christians, know that great and indescribable is the calamity from which Christ shed His Blood, wanting to save us, and great and incomprehensible is the future bliss, which by His death interceded for us who have lost it. Glory to His incomprehensible love and mercy for us! It is incomprehensible both the evil of eternal torment and the good of eternal bliss, for the sake of which the Son of God and the true God did not spare Himself in order to deliver us from the first, and to return the second to us. But such is our common blindness and damnation that we either have little faith or do not believe it at all, although God has revealed that bliss in different ways in His holy Word for our benefit and consolation. Jesus Christ has all the bliss that can be, and true and immovable bliss. His Heavenly Father gave us as a doctor against all our misfortunes and the source of all bliss. Read His Holy Gospel as it should - and you will know the truth. If you cling to Him with heartfelt faith, you will have His justification from your sins, deliverance from your captivity, peace from your evil conscience, consolation from your sorrow, consolation in your sorrow, protection against your slanderers, justification in the judgment of God, help against your enemies, refuge against your persecutors, reason and wisdom against your bewilderment and madness, strengthening in your weakness, life against your death - in a word, every blessing against your curse. The whole essence of Christian blessedness consists in faith. For whoever has true living faith has God’s blessing, the truth of Christ, holiness, deliverance, spiritual freedom, eternal life and bliss. The man was truly blessed, but he lost his bliss. He was like God, created in the image of God and in the likeness, but he became equal to the foolish beasts and became like them (Ps. 48:21). He was incorruptible, but became corruptible; was immortal, but became mortal: the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). He was wise, but he became mad. He was rich, but became poor. He was red, but became ugly. He was holy and pure, but became filthy and unclean. It was the church and dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, but became the dwelling place of unclean spirits. He was a master and owner, but became a slave and captive. He was a resident of a sweet paradise, like the king of a beautiful palace, but was banished to this world as if into exile. Man was deprived of such bliss and suffered such misfortune. Blessed and wise is he who here in this world lives as a traveler, as a stranger and a stranger, and, not having a permanent city here, seeks the future, of which God is the artist and builder (Heb. 13, 14; 11, 10). Blessed is he who turns away his eyes from time and the temporal and turns to eternity and the eternal, blessed indeed!