Hearing (His Voice)
- 20 hours ago
- 3 min read
“The Revelation of the Apostle John the Theologian reads: Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me (Rev. 3:20). Repentance—that is, turning to God or reconciliation with Him, is not just a moment in a person’s life, but a permanent process that lasts his entire life. Day after day, hour after hour, throughout our lives we are called to rise again and again from our great and small falls that separate us from God and return to Him. Human nature is fragile and changeable—we can fall at any moment. But we can also always rise if we cry out to God for help.” (Metropolitan Serafim Joanta)
“What else can cause sorrow and depression? The burden of a sinful life, often unconfessed—unrepented sins. Can you imagine what it means to go about with such a burden? After all, every man has a conscience, the voice of God. And if a man doesn’t know how to be delivered of his sins, how to repent of them, he often falls into despair. This requires a detailed confession, of your whole life, and fruits worthy of repentance…The Spirit communicates with those mortals who have attained a measure of personal purity through prayer, men and women who are receptive to His voice…Usually however, we don’t hear God’s voice. We don’t hear when God calls us because we can’t understand His calling.” (Archpriest Pavel Gumerov, Dynamis 12/27/2020, Bishop Emilianos)
“There are different proper and righteous ways to respond when we finally hear God’s voice. One is to remorsefully enumerate one’s sins in repentance. Another is to list all of one’s blessings in thanksgiving to God for every good and perfect gift – humbly to credit God for all the blessings in one’s life. Both methods lead us to recognizing God and His presence in our lives. Both are valid responses to God and both involve confession.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“…the main condition for this communion is faith, because faith reveals to man the vision of the spiritual world, and mainly, the vision of God in his life. Furthermore God Himself overcomes the gulf that separates us--the gulf between His sanctity and our sinfulness, between His greatness and our lowliness, between His perfection and our imperfection. Christ says, Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me [Revelation 3:20]--and these words as if reveal the mystery of God’s relationship with man. God Himself knocks at the human heart, and it is only necessary for a person to respond to this in order to enter into communion with God.” (Igumen Nektary Morozov)
“Accordingly, He is born in a cave, in a small town, to which, at the time of the census, there came a family rich only in virtues—the family of the poor carpenter the righteous Joseph. No one living on earth could have imagined that the Deliverer would appear in such destitution, that the One who reigns over all creation would come to mankind in this way. And even the prince of this world at that time—the proud adversary of God, the devil—was deceived and didn’t recognize in the One Who was born the One Whom he envied when he was still an angel. The eternal mystery of the salvation of mankind, hidden from his power, could be known only to those who heed the voice from Heaven and direct their gaze there.” (St. John Maximovitch)
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