Written by Greg Pantelidis BSc(Hons)
gregpantelidis@gmail.com
Trust in the economy of the Universal Source, that is, the Lord. The economy of the Lord is leading you to salvation.
I have three words for you: Humility, Respect, and Love. Practice these three towards the Lord and towards your neighbor. These three are the life of blessedness. These three are eternal life.
Remember that the Pentecost of the Mind comes to a humble and simple mind. Remember that the Pentecost of the Heart comes to a humble and simple heart.
Do not advertise your virtues or your knowledge. Accept rebukes for your faults, and admonitions for your correction.
(Acts 26:18): “To return them from darkness to light, and from the authority of Satan to that of God.”
How was the Orthodox Christian Church of old? It was a paradise of humility, meekness, mercy, rejoicing with others, and love. What is the state of many Orthodox Christians now? It is the state of unbelief, pride, wrath, non-mercy, envy, and hatred.
We should not seek glory for our ideas, virtues, or achievements. All these are gifts of the Lord. Credit for these belongs to the Lord.
Be neutral to your body. Be neutral to your soul. Allow the Lord to lead you to perfection in chastity, charity, and obedience.
Ask, seek, knock, resolve, and be aggressive. These are the ways to practice virtue. An idle and passive way can never lead you to perfection in virtue.
The Lord cares for our salvation, not for wealth, glory, or comforts. We should seek our salvation first, and wealth, glory, and comforts will also be given to us.
We should reject pride and walk the path of humility, obedience, charity, and chastity. We should use our gifts for chastity, charity, humility, and obedience. Our gifts should not remain idle, but we must use them for the needs of the Orthodox Christian Church, and the general community.
Have before you the three types of thoughts: Blasphemous thoughts, Shameful thoughts, and Cunning thoughts. Reject these thoughts when they appear and repent, confess, and do penance, if you accept them.
Do not give your heart to wealth, glory, and pleasure, for all these generate anger, sorrow, fear, and guilt. Rather give your heart to the Lord, and daily practice charity, humility, obedience, and continence.
We must seek freedom from attachment to wealth, glory, and comforts. When we seek the Lord we will, in stages, be freed from attachment to wealth, glory, and comforts. The first detachment is from comforts. The second detachment is from wealth. The third detachment is from glory. Be detached and be free!
Be free from wealth. Be free from glory. Be free from comforts. Be free from the body. Be free from everything that is limiting your perfection in virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts. Be free and perfect!
Go to Lord Jesus to be freed of the passions. Then teach others to go to Lord Jesus to be freed of the passions. Only Lord Jesus can free us of the passions. (See John 8:36).
Go to Lord Jesus to be freed of wrong thoughts, wrong feelings, wrong words, and wrong practices. Go to Lord Jesus and be freed!
Wrong thoughts are of three types: Blasphemous thoughts, Shameful thoughts, and Cunning thoughts. Go to Lord Jesus to be freed of these thoughts!
The world, that is, the secular church, cannot receive the Shekinah, the Holy Spirit. (See John 14:17).
Go to a physician of the mind. Go to a physician of the heart. Go to a physician of the soul. Go to a physician of the body. When you have an illness in these, seek a physician. Lord Jesus is a physician of the mind, the heart, the soul, and the body.
Do you have an illness of the mind? Do you have an illness of the heart? Do you have an illness of the soul? Do you have an illness of the body?
The illnesses of the mind are wrong thoughts or wrong ideas. The illnesses of the heart are wrong feelings. The illnesses of the soul are wrong desire and wrong anger. The illnesses of the body are wrong functioning.
Research and practice scientific, philosophical, and theological, psychology and psychiatry.
Consider the economy of your thoughts and ideas. Be a prudent economist, and test your thoughts and ideas. Reject wrong thoughts and wrong ideas. The economy of your thoughts and ideas requires guarding and working. (See Gen. 2:15).
Consider the economy of your thoughts. Consider the economy of blasphemous, shameful, and cunning thoughts. You must reject every such wrong thought. If you accept it, you must repent, confess, and do penance.
Regret your wrong thoughts, wrong feelings, wrong words, and wrong practices. Regret, repent, confess, restore, and do penance.
Always practice chastity, charity, and obedience and you will have nothing to fear. This life will be a blessing and the future life will be something that you have prepared for.
Individualism is not necessarily egoism. Individualism is to practice your personal mission. Each person has their personal mission which others may not understand.
Use the scientific method to tackle psychological problems. Use the theological method to tackle psychological problems.
Lord Jesus gives the gift of grace, forgiveness, virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts, to those who repent and turn to Him.
Live a life of chastity, charity, and obedience, and you will be filled with grace, virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts.
Orthodox Christianity is to have a relationship with Lord Jesus by practicing chastity, charity, and obedience.
You must go to Lord Jesus to be judged and acquitted of your sins. Those who are not judged and acquitted now, will have to face the Last Judgment in guilt. Now is the time for regret, repentance, confession, restoration, judgment, acquittal, and penance.
Observe how food, possessions, glory, and opinions create disputes. The economy of food, possessions, glory, and opinions, must be just. In the face of injustice an Orthodox Christian must take refuge in humility and self-reproach.
(Matt. 7:2): “For with the judgment you judge you will be judged, and with the measure you measure, you will be measured.”
Are you an Old Testament person practicing symmetric justice: good for good, bad for bad, neutrality for neutrality? Or are you a New Testament person practicing one-sided symmetric justice: good for good, good for bad, good for neutrality?
We must respect the right of persons to believe in Lord Jesus, to not believe in Lord Jesus, or to be neutral to Lord Jesus. Our ministry is directed to those who believe in Lord Jesus.
The root cause of all evil is pride. Pride is to turn from the Lord, that is, to seek divorce from the Lord. The dragon was the first to seek this divorce. Adam and Eve were second in seeking this divorce. Pride causes all sin. Sin is the perversion of nature.
Your sins will haunt you unless you regret, repent, confess, restore, and do penance.
We receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit by regret, repentance, confession, restoration, penance, and a life of chastity, charity, and obedience.
The Baptism of the Shekinah, that is, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, is the beginning of the New Testament life.
Observe the flow of your ideas. The subjects that you have an economy of ideas are your calling from the Lord. Tune in to your calling and practice your gifts.
Consider ideas in any subject. You make those ideas practice by discretizing, ordering, and sequencing. Implement ideas a step at a time, evaluating your progress.
Consider the economy of your good ideas. Good ideas come from prophecy. Do not take credit for good ideas, nor accept them without testing.
The passions are either an illogical love or an illogical hatred towards a person or towards a thing. Self-love for example, is an illogical love of the body. Gluttony is an illogical love of food. Love of possessions is an illogical love of possessions. Vanity is an illogical love of glory. Rancor is an illogical hatred towards a person that is due to wrong.
The secular church practices unchastity, non-charity, and disobedience. The Lord calls the secular church to return to Him and to practice chastity, charity, and obedience. Will the secular church heed the call?
Virtue requires obscurity and privacy. Advertising virtue should be avoided.
Faith, virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts are personal. We cannot expect non-believers to seek these. We should associate with the faithful, for from them we can learn virtue and wisdom.
Leave unbelievers and neutrals alone. We have no right to judge them, or to compel them to believe. Turn your attention to your personal mission, your own membership, and your own progress in virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts.
In every institution there is a power and duty structure. In the Orthodox Christian Church there is also a power and duty structure. Every member of the Orthodox Christian Church must practice chastity, charity, and obedience.
Fame for secular wisdom and secular achievements is temporary. Fame for virtue, spiritual wisdom, and spiritual achievements is eternal.
Our life is part natural and part mystical. For the natural part we use logic, order, and the scientific method. For the mystical part we use faith, seeking, prayer, obedience, humility, and prophecy.
The natural person does not understand the mystical person, because the natural person uses mainly logic, whereas the mystical person uses faith, obedience and the other methods of the mystical life. The natural person cannot receive the Shekinah, the Holy Spirit, because they lack faith and the mystical method. The mystical person receives the Shekinah, the Holy Spirit, because of their faith, honesty, humility, and the other methods of the mystical method. (See 1 Cor. 2:14).
An Orthodox Christian psychological physician uses the natural method as well as the mystical method to cure psychological illness.
The natural side of life contains symmetry, physiology, and logic. The mystical side of life contains the soul, virtues and vices, angels and demons, the saints, the Trinitarian Lord, mysteries, mystical law, and mystical knowledge. To understand natural life you require the natural method. To understand mystical life you require the mystical method.
Live a life of honor. Have honor in mind, rejecting wrong thoughts. Have honor in heart, rejecting wrong feelings. Have honor in tongue, rejecting wrong words. Have honor in eyes and ears rejecting wrong sights and sounds. Have honor in hands, rejecting wrong practice. Have honor in feet, rejecting to go to wrong places. Have honor in body, rejecting wrong practice.
Do not be phrenopathic, thinking that you are something. (See Gal. 6:3).
You must go to Lord Jesus to be loosed of your love of wealth, love of glory, and love of pleasure. (See John 8:36).
Our life contains the natural, which is logic and symmetry, the unnatural, which is sin, and the mystical, which is grace and faith. To understand the natural is to understand logic and symmetry. To understand the unnatural is to understand illogic, greed, vanity, and pleasure. To understand the mystical is to understand faith, humility, obedience, prayer, and spiritual knowledge.
To understand mysticism is to understand humility, obedience, and prophecy. A mystic has all his hope in Lord Jesus and trusts fully in the economy of Lord Jesus. (See 1 Thess. 5:18).
Observe how in the natural life you reap what you sow. (See Gal. 6:7). If you do good you reap good. If you do wrong you reap wrong. It often occurs that there is a delay in reaping, but at some point you will reap. Sow therefore only good.
The life of an Orthodox Christian is lived by practicing the logical or scientific method, and the mystical method. Both methods are needed.
You avoid vanity of the body by neutrality to the body and simplicity of dress. You avoid vanity of the soul by avoiding first-seats, hiding your virtue, doing nothing for the sake of glory from men, living in obscurity and privacy, and by never advertising your achievements.
The mystical life, spoken of in the Orthodox Christian Scripture and the Orthodox Christian writings, is hidden from those who do not believe and only seek the natural life. Orthodox Christian texts are sealed for unbelievers.
The mystical life requires faith, self-denial, and obedience. The natural life requires logic and self-respect. To reach the highest levels of the mystical life you require humility, simplicity, and zeal. The natural life does not understand self-denial and grace. The mystical life is the life of faith, grace, virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts.
The mystical life is to live the life of grace. The mystical life requires faith, self-denial, obedience to the Lord, and perfect trust in the economy of the Lord. The mystical person is not of this world, having been resurrected to the mystical life of grace, humility, and prophecy.
The mystical life is the life of humility, the life of non-wealth, non-glory, and non-pleasure. The natural person does not understand humility, but seeks wealth, glory, and pleasure. The mystery of humility is the key to the mystical life.
You must be in harmony with the Lord to succeed in the mystical life. Without harmony with the Lord the mystical life is impossible.
Have you renounced wealth, glory, and pleasure, and devoted yourself to the mystical life of charity, humility, and continence?
Work on correcting yourself. See your greed, vanity, and pleasure, and strive to practice charity, humility, and continence. Never judge the greed, vanity, or pleasure of others, but look at your own, and correct yourself.
Observe how many people are deceived by wealth. Observe how many people are deceived by glory. Observe how many people are deceived by pleasure. Only an Orthodox Christian is free of attachment to wealth, glory, and pleasure. (See John 8:36).
According to the golden rule we will reap what we sow: good for good, wrong for wrong, neutrality for neutrality. The world lives by this golden rule. Mystical persons, that is Orthodox Christians, live by the spiritual golden rule, which is charity. The spiritual golden rule is to return good for good, good and forgiveness for wrong, and good for neutrality. The golden rule is symmetry, the spiritual golden rule is charity.
Is wealth, glory, and pleasure the happy life? No. Charity, humility, and continence is the happy life.
The Shekinah has come, but remains hidden from the world. (See John 14:17).
Avoid idle talk, that is talk of addiction to wealth, addiction to glory, or addiction to pleasure. Worldly persons have these three addictions and talk of them constantly. Let your talk be of charity, humility, continence, and eternal life. We will soon depart to eternity and must prepare. Our preparation is to always practice chastity, charity, and obedience.
Practice personal censorship by avoiding wrong sights and wrong hearings. Turn your eyes from wrong things. Close your ears from wrong words and hearings.
Say “Glory to God!” for the economy of good you receive, and for the economy of temptations and sufferings. Both economies are aimed at your salvation.
Patience is the most important of virtues. The economy of the Lord requires us to be patient for the receiving of good, and patient for the resolving of suffering. When we wait in patience, practicing all we can, then the Lord gives us goods or the resolution of our suffering.
We should censor our senses from wrong things, striving always to only allow good to be received. This censorship makes us true solitaries, wherever we may live.
Censor your eyes from wrong sights. Censor your ears from wrong words and hearings. Censor your mind from wrong thoughts, be they blasphemous, shameful, or cunning.
Repent of the past. Practice virtue in the present. Plan for the future with the Lord in mind.
A missionary should turn away from those persons who resist his message. (See 2 Tim. 3:5).
Always view persons as individuals, unique in their gifts, talents, and spiritual practice. Not all can practice the same, nor is the psychology of all the same.
Each individual person has a unique psychology which allows them to practice in their unique way. We must respect the psychology and spiritual capacity of each person, and hope that the Lord will help them progress in the mystical life of gospel virtue, gospel wisdom, and spiritual gifts.
Secular culture changes. The design of hair, clothing, buildings, technology, and all practical things, changes. Orthodox Christian culture does not change. Charity, humility, and continence remain the same.
Humility, labors, and the sacraments, will increase in us the fruit of the Spirit. (See Gal. 5:22).
A missionary is a deliverer (See Rom. 11:26), who delivers persons from greed, vanity, and pleasure. Always remember that persons are enslaved to the enemy through greed, vanity, and pleasure, and need deliverance. The enemy of course will do everything he can to obstruct this deliverance. Be humble and labor to deliver the enslaved.
Individualism is essential in spiritual practice. No one can practice for you, and you cannot practice for others. Concentrate on your own practice. Leave the delivering and teaching of others to those who are qualified.
To cure psychological illness you require both the scientific method and the theological method. Psychological illness requires a multi-method approach. Physical illness also requires both the scientific method and the theological method.
The aim of psychological therapy is to make passions of soul positive. It is necessary to make negative pride positive, negative desire positive, negative anger positive, negative jealousy positive, negative sorrow positive, negative views positive.
We should not have as our friends the weeds. (See Matt. 13:38). Our friends should be the wheat, the persons who believe in Lord Jesus and seek to practice virtue.
King of the weeds is the false Messiah. King of the wheat is Lord Jesus.
The weeds abhor the virtues because they love and practice the opposite of the virtues, that is, the vices. Similarly, the wheat abhor the vices because they love and practice the opposite of the vices, namely, the virtues. We should have as our friends only the practitioners of virtue. The practitioners of vice will only harm us and be a scandal to us.
Have as friends only the canonical disciples of Lord Jesus. Be a practicing disciple of Lord Jesus, devoted to your personal mission, and be foreign to those who do not believe in Lord Jesus.
Ask a person: “What is your addiction? Food, possessions (including knowledge), glory, or romance? When they tell you their addiction tell them that only Lord Jesus can deliver them from this addiction. (See John 8:36). Then, if they accept to hear more, tell them of the life and message of Lord Jesus. If they wish to become a disciple enroll them as a catechumen.
Individualism is very important. Each person speaks their own language of likes, dislikes, and neutralities. Each person has their own mission, their own goals, their own psychology, their own cross.
The mind must rule the body, and the Lord must rule the mind. The mind is second, the body third, and the Lord first.
What characterizes the ungodly church? The three vices of unchastity, non-charity, and disobedience. What characterizes the Godly, Orthodox Christian Church? The three virtues of chastity, charity, and obedience.
Lord Jesus calls all to become members of the Godly City, the Orthodox Christian Church. A remnant of chosen ones heed the call.
Are you in the remnant, the Godly City, destined to be saved?
