SACRAMENTAL LIVING

Understanding Christianity as a Way of Life

Worship (in Spirit and Truth)

“God is Spirit: God cannot be confined to a particular location. Those who receive the Holy Spirit and believe in Jesus Christ can worship God the Father with purity of heart.” (Orthodox Study Bible, John 4:20-24) “God is not limited by time and space. When people are born of the Spirit, they can commune with God anywhere…Christ makes worship a matter of the heart. Truth is what is in harmony with the nature and will of God.” (Foundation Study Bible, John 4:24) “Therefore, th

Spiritual Dimension

“Jeremiah tried to warn King Zedekiah about the impending Babylon invasion and told him what he should do (Jer. 45:14-28 LXX/38:14-28). Jeremiah did so because he was directed by God…The spiritual dimension dominates the consciousness of Jeremiah but remains only a shadow-possibility for Zedekiah. He may believe that Jeremiah has a valid point about surrendering, but what motivates the king is the political world with its viewpoints, actions, and coalitions of men…thus he was

Feeding

“Jesus feeding the multitudes, specifically feeding the five thousand, is His only miracle that is recounted in all four Gospels (except for the Resurrection). Incidentally, there were more than 5,000 people as only the men were counted according to Blessed Theophylact. There were women and children as well, which means the number was far greater than five thousand and our Lord fed everyone. The feeding in this miracle was of their bodies, but this multitude was also followin

Echoes of Truth: Christianity in The Lord of the Rings now available through Apple Books

Prayer (for Others)

“One must force himself to prayer when he has not spiritual prayer; and thus God, beholding him thus striving and compelling himself by force, in spite of an unwilling heart, gives him the true prayer of the Spirit.” (St. Macarius the Great) “When we continually force ourselves to bless and pray for others, …we will find that our Lord Jesus Christ will change, renew, and refresh our hearts. It may take some time and persistence, but gradually, almost imperceptibly, we will be

Nature

“When Barnabas and Paul are mistaken as gods by the gentiles in Lystra because Paul healed a crippled man, they remind these gentiles of a simple truth: ‘He [God] did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness’ (Acts 14:17). Paul wrote something similar in Romans 1:20: ‘For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the thin

Intimacy and Knowing

“To know and be known by another is a deep desire of the heart. This desire is implanted in us by God. He tells Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). This applies to all of us. God has intimate knowledge of us before we exist as we know existence, and then desires we know Him so we can be complete. This is why so many people who find their way to God and begin to know Him are filled with a joy and a fervor that often seems either irrational, o

Labels

“I really am not a fan of “Christian” media, primarily because that term tends to push people into only accessing media labeled “Christian,” and often those media are even more ideologically driven than so-called secular media. Not to mention I believe that God works in all places and cannot be confined to media that humans label.” (Dr. Mary Hess) “Labeling art, books, and music as Christian is often detrimental to the truth of Christianity because it segregates, separates, a

Michael Haldas and others featured on the recent episode of Amon Sûl Orthodox Christian Tolkien Podc

Michael Haldas and others featured on the recent episode of Amon Sûl Orthodox Christian Tolkien Podc

Michael Haldas and several other guest contributors were featured on the recent Amon Sûl Podcast by Father Andrew Stephen Damick. They discussed what the movie critics and many Christians have gotten wrong in their negative reviews on the Tolkien movie biopic, and why it is a beautiful film that is true to Christianity and Tolkien himself. "006 - The “Tolkien” Multi-Guest Movie Review Extravaganza May 17, 2019 Length: 46:37 Fr. Andrew thinks a lot of the reviewers of the 2019

Free Will

“ ‘But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake’ (Acts 9:15-16). That Saul was God's chosen vessel does not mean that he had no free will in the matter. Rather, it indicates that God had selected Saul, knowing that he would freely accept and be capable of doing the work set before him…God's foreknowledge does not preclud

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