SACRAMENTAL LIVING

Understanding Christianity as a Way of Life

Love and Action/Will

"Love is a choice, a choice we must go on making for the rest of our lives. To love is not to act on instinct but to set before ourselves God’s will and the needs of our neighbour…Love requires action; it does not hide away in the safety of the heart." (Father Spyridon Baily) “Sometimes we must get involved in a messy or painful situation in order to help others. We should be willing to act immediately when others need our help.” (Life Application Study Bible, Genesis 14:14-1

False Teaching

“False teachers are always charmed by their own ideas about truth. Worse, because they willfully attract others to adopt their ideas, they become further deluded by the admiration of their followers.” (Dynamis 1/30/2018) “False teaching has an intoxicating effect that dulls the mind to God’s truth.” (Foundation Study Bible, 2 Timothy 2:26) “When false teaching goes unchallenged, it breeds more confusion and draws still more shallow and insincere people into the fold.” (John M

Conquering

“Forgetting that the Lord is near, that God is with us, that in Christ Jesus death has been conquered and evil overthrown, is what allows the unpeace and anxiety that lead to violence to enter our minds and hearts. Remembering the nearness of God and the forgiveness that we have received through the Cross, trusting God in every circumstance of our lives, bearing the name of Jesus on our lips—these are the things that conquer anxiety and lead to peace and allow God himself to

Virtue

“For Christian thought, the movement towards virtue was easily taken up in the understanding of the Christian life as a constant transformation into the image of Christ, the true incarnation of the virtuous person.” (Father Stephen Freeman) “We cannot produce virtue ourselves; but we can choose to obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” (Foundation Study Bible, 2 Peter 1:5) “True virtue never appears so lovely, as when it is most oppressed; and the divine exc

Complexity and Simplicity

“God is “a Spirit, an incomplex Being . . . not composed of a series or of a multitude of thoughts, or of a multitude of words or creations, but . . . wholly, in one incomplex thought, God.” (Saint John of Kronstadt) “…every element of the Christian faith is related to and bound up with other elements, in a wondrous pattern of complex simplicity.” (James R. Payton Jr.) “In my years of following Christ, I have come to the conclusion that many Christians make finding God’s pres

Love Thy Neighbor

“This second commandment…”You shall love your neighbor as yourself”, or more clearly, “as being yourself.” It is often misinterpreted, “You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself,” which destroys the force of the statement. How much we love ourselves is not the standard by which Christ is calling us to love others. Rather, we are called to love our neighbor as being of the same nature as we ourselves are, as being created in God's image and likeness just as we are. As

Heart and Head

“Most of us live outside our heart, and our mind is in a constant state of confusion. Some good thoughts may surface from time to time, but the majority will be harmful, and this destructive condition will prevail for as long as we continue to ignore our heart...The prayers of a fragmented mind have neither clarity nor depth, but a mind that is reunited with the heart overflows with humble prayer and has such strength that it reaches the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.” (Archima

Priesthood

“The word “priest” means “offeror” and, according to the Church, all human beings, clergy and laity, are supposed to be offerors in that we should offer our lives and all we have first to God because they are God’s.” (Sacramental Living) “In baptism we all are anointed with grace as priests in the Kingdom of God; for the spiritual Kingdom is also the spiritual priesthood. Moreover, as the body of Christ, we have a priestly ministry to the world, fulfilling the very priesthood

Cares

“God wants us to give or burdens to Him, but we often continue to bear them ourselves even when we say we are trusting in Him. Trust the same strength that sustains you to carry your cares also.” (Life Application Study Bible, Psalm 55:22) “As soon as our thoughts begin to oppress us, we must turn to God; and take to Him our cares and the cares of our neighbor." (Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica) “The gospel assures me that God cares about everything I do and will listen to my pra

Spiritual and Material

“In the material world there are many things that correspond to those of the spiritual world, because the material world is also the creation of the Spirit…we have a physical existence every much a part of who we are as is our spiritual existence: we are being redeemed both in body and soul." (St. John of Krondstat, Father Spyridon Baily) “Most of the countless books, videos, and training programs that guarantee successful life management ask you to use your God-given dynamis

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