Comments on: The Level of Difficulty http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/ Orthodox Christianity, Culture and Religion, Making the Journey of Faith Fri, 24 May 2013 18:18:33 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: fatherstephen http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-7233 fatherstephen Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:38:43 +0000 http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-7233 Jasmine,

I have not written a book as an Orthodox Christian. I am considering eventually gathering some of the writings from the blog for a book. Thank you for the encouragement.

]]> By: Jasmine Yedigarian http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-7217 Jasmine Yedigarian Thu, 21 Jun 2007 03:30:04 +0000 http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-7217 have you ever written a book before? I find all of your blog posts or articles to be worthy of reflection in my daily life, and was wondering if you ever plan on putting this collection of writings together one day..

]]> By: fatherstephen http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6954 fatherstephen Sat, 16 Jun 2007 21:23:19 +0000 http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6954 Jason, I don’t think I disagree at all. We speak of all those moments, but in the course of Orthodox services I would say the balance is more like 95% we can do nothing! Help us! to 5% work out your salvation. Which gives the message that working out your salvation is learning to let God work in you. We do not teach anything other than God working in us, even if we speak of cooperating with him.

]]> By: Michael Bauman http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6936 Michael Bauman Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:56:03 +0000 http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6936 It is the very love of Christ that enables us to perceive our sins and that enables us to repent. “As many as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ” We have received “the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit” We are ontologically changed by that. While we are still free to turn away from that gift and, to a certain extent, we all do, we have opened the door and the Holy Trinity who saves us, has come in. Every time we make the sign of the Cross, attend Liturgy, cry out for forgiveness the deeper doors in our soul are opened a little more. In my experience, they become difficult to close completely.

It is equally true that we are all spiritually paralyzed and blind. The great hope I receive from the story of the paralytic was that Christ healed him because of the faith of his friends. Each act of prayer and sacrifice in community bears fruit for others which redounds to our own salvation.

Salvation is not linear nor is our communion with God external. “Thine own of thine own we offer unto Thee” By stepping into the Church, we have entered a reality that is infinite; transcending and interpentrating the deepest recesses of our being; uniting us with each other and all of our brothers and sisters in the “past” and in the “future” We are inextricably connected even in the created world, how much more in the Body of Christ.

We pray for ourselves Lord have mercy, not because He is hard, but so that we may all enter into His love. As we do so, to a degree, all others for whom we pray also enter into that love. Why else do we ask for the intercession of the saints, especially Mary, the Theotokos.

We simply do not have the words to come close to describing the greatness of God. The best we can do is describe our own unworthiness while at the same time acknowledging that for some inexplicable reason, He loves us. Unlike us, He is constant in His love.

]]> By: Jason http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6935 Jason Sat, 16 Jun 2007 13:56:55 +0000 http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6935 Thank you for your comments Fr. Stephen.

I guess the only point I was trying to get across (my “big idea” if you will) is that Orthodoxy, at times, at least to me, seems to highlight the “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” more than the “for it is God that works in you for his good pleasure” truth of our salvation.

I realize it’s not an either-or, but there are those moments when we truly realize that all our efforts as and all we can do as Christians will never live up to the perfection of God. It’s those moments, when we as sinners are crushed, that admonitions to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” cause us to fall on our knees and cry out “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” And at just such a moment, do we not need the comfort and hope (and assurance?) that God has loved us and embraced us not because of what we are or what we’ve done, but rather because of who Christ is and what he has fully accomplished in us.

Blessings,

Jason

]]> By: fatherstephen http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6890 fatherstephen Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:32:41 +0000 http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6890 Jason, I have no doubt in the sufficiency of Christ. But when I think of Christ I do not separate Him from His Body the Church, for this would be to do what God has not done. And the prayers of the Church teach me not to think too highly of myself. I speak of the prayers of my brothers and sisters, who are in Christ, and know that their poor prayers only have sufficiency because of the grace and goodness of Christ. We mean nothing to be taken away from Christ, but our habit of speech contains the fullness of doctrine within it. Including the attitude of heart that God has seen fit to protect us from pride and the like. It has to be learned, but if you’ll read carefully St. Paul’s letters you’ll note how often he asked for prayers from the brethren. But all of our sufficiency is in Christ. We assume that in all that we do or say. But we do not forget the brethren, which is often the case in Church’s who have separated themselves from the fullness of the Church.

]]> By: Jason http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6888 Jason Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:23:09 +0000 http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6888 Hello Fr. Freeman,

Regarding your following comment, [Quote] I am not ready nor fit, and if I die tonight, then I will hope that friends and family will begin to pray for me with great fervor – for I shall need it [End Quote].

Father, how does this mentality fit in with the confidence that we Christians, we sinners, can have in the person and work of Christ? Surely none of us are ready for death and none of us will ever be ready or made fit in and of ourselves, but, thanks be to God, that the power of the Incarnation and the Cross makes us fit. I understand you sentiments about our sinful condition—and I whole-heartedly agree with it—but it seems, at times, Orthodoxy tends to focus on our great sin and the need to repent and preserve, at the expense of the comfort and salvation that Christ has already won for us.

Yes, we won’t be ready, but by the grace of God, Christ in his mercy makes us ready and receives us as his own. This is the confidence that every believer should carry throughout his or her lives. Not in the sense to make us slothful or to give us a license to sin, but to bring comfort when they truly realize that they’ll always miss the mark and can never save themselves. There is section in Bo Giertz’s book the Hammer of God where one of the characters is dying and their friends ask them if they are thinking of Jesus, and he essentially tells them that he’s not able to, but he knows that Jesus is thinking of him. This to me simply illustrates the truth of Philippians 1:6 that he who began a good work in you will complete it. Glory be to Jesus Christ—the Author and Finisher of our faith.

Blessings,

Jason

]]> By: The WebElf Report http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6870 The WebElf Report Fri, 15 Jun 2007 01:47:41 +0000 http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6870 [...] FR. STEPHEN: “The Level of Difficulty” … (fatherstephen) No Comments so far Leave a [...]

]]> By: Weedon http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6816 Weedon Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:24:20 +0000 http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6816 Some wise pilgrim once said it like this:

This life is not godliness, but growth in godliness;
not health, but healing;
not being, but becoming;
not rest, but exercise.
We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way;
the process is not yet finished, but it has begun;
this is not the goal, but it is road;
at present all does not gleam and glitter, but everything is being
purified.

]]> By: Death Bredon http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6801 Death Bredon Thu, 14 Jun 2007 01:16:50 +0000 http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/06/13/the-level-of-difficulty/#comment-6801 Was it not Gregory of Nyssa who coined the aphorism, “Progress, not perfection [at least in this world]“?

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