“How can we gain that same confidence in the certainty of all that Christ is, does, and teaches? Conviction comes from experience. To obtain it, we must get to know Christ deeply and fully. We must hear His Word, obey His commandments, receive His Body and Blood, pray constantly and fervently to Him, take part in the fellowship of believers, and practice His presence in every moment of our lives. Then from all these encounters with Christ, we will grow in unwavering and resolute faith in Him who died and rose again for all.” (Fr. Basil)
“…when a person seeks to follow the Lord, every fall can become a greater victory. The process of falling and getting up again can bring greater conviction and seriousness about living a committed Christian life. It can bring deeper humility and acceptance of our dependence on God.” (Neal Lozano)
“God can be sought only by those who have known Him and then lost Him, because any search for God presupposes an earlier taste of Him. So it’s a ray of hope for us and for those who are interested in us, if, even once in our life, we have experienced the certainty, granted by the Holy Spirit, that God loves us in our sinfulness, as we are and not as He would want us to be. This conviction activates our desire to return, that is to live in the way He wants us to. Not in the sense of His superiority, but because we realize that this is what we, too, want in the depths of our being. Then the divine will and our own personal will are united and produce ‘exceeding great joy’.” (Fr. Andreas Agathokleous)
“…the Lord Jesus desires to free us from the fear of men, and to anchor our spirits in God the Father. Christ understands how fear defeats us and inhibits the mission of the Church in the world. How can the fearful disciple preach from the housetops and tell the world what he has learned from Christ? Only when God provides grace to our hearts do we develop certainty and confidence. God’s grace is neither a feeling nor an understanding so much as the very presence of God moving within us and strengthening our feeble spirits.” (Dynamis 6/25/2020)
“[Spiritual growth] is the work of a lifetime and often involves some great hardship and struggle… all of us must struggle hard to get past our own lazy inclinations and seek God with all of our effort because, due to the sinful inclinations within us, it does not, at first, come naturally… we must live sacramentally to know God and to keep our struggle fresh and alive because spiritual growth and an eventual sense of conviction come through persistence and struggle.” (Sacramental Living)
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