Written by Greg Pantelidis BSc(Hons)
gregpantelidis@gmail.com
Read a spiritual precept or a spiritual paragraph and seek to make it a reality in your life.
The life of virtue has three major steps: Humility, Respect, and Love. Practice these steps towards the Lord and your neighbor, and you will be perfect.
The Lord helps us always. Only for certain reasons according to His judgment does He not help us. Be humble and hope in the Lord, and you will have His help.
Follow the Way of Life: Right faith, Right thought, Right feeling, Right word, and Right practice.
Beware of those who teach the Way of Non-right: Unbelief, overeating, overpossessing, non-prayer, vanity, pride, disobedience, lying, reviling, unchastity. Identify these vices and detach from the persons who practice them, even if they are your closest friends or your kin.
Remember that when death comes what has value is chastity, charity, and obedience. These are the three vows of every person who returns through repentance to the Lord.
Each relationship has three steps: Humility, Respect, and Love. We must practice these three steps, in the above sequence, in every relationship.
When death comes blessed are they who have practiced chastity, charity, and obedience. Woe to those who have practiced unchastity, non-charity, and disobedience.
Every Orthodox Christian parent must have the priesthood in mind for their son or spiritual priesthood in mind for their daughter, and must train them in chastity, charity, and obedience.
The three virtues of chastity, charity, and obedience oppose the three giants of lust, love of wealth, and pride.
True happiness comes from living a life of chastity, charity, and obedience.
Are your kin hostile to the Orthodox Christian Faith? You must turn from them and embrace your spiritual kin.
You must be aggressive towards the fallen angels, resisting their wrong thoughts and wrong feelings.
Turn away from those who are hostile or neutral to the Orthodox Christian Faith. Associate with believers, with practitioners of chastity, charity, and obedience.
Observe the outer suffering of tyranny, poverty, and disease. Observe the inner suffering of greed, vanity, and pleasure. Outer suffering is permitted to cure inner suffering.
Allow Source to shine through you. Practice chastity, charity, and obedience and the Light of Source will ignite in you, and illumine the world.
Be aggressive in seeking virtue and knowledge. The aggressive advance in virtue and knowledge. (See Matt. 11:12).
What use is lust, non-charity, and pride? See how worthless these are and practice chastity, charity, humility, and obedience.
We cannot be close to all. Some people are our friends, others our enemies, and others our neutrals. If we rid ourselves of ego, we can perhaps move people from these categories.
If you truly practice chastity, charity, and obedience, your practice will serve as a teacher to others. If you only speak of these virtues and do not practice them, the world will see your hypocrisy. Practice therefore, and your practice will serve as teacher. (See Matt. 5:19).
Remember the Way of Darkness is: unchastity, non-charity, and disobedience. Remember the Way of Light is: chastity, charity, and obedience.
A doctor of theology and a doctor of philosophy is he who can cure the wounds of the soul. Theology and philosophy are the medical science of the soul.
Practice chastity, charity, and obedience and they will teach you all things.
Be canonical in eating and fasting. Be canonical in the use of possessions. Be canonical in glory, seeking no glory for yourself, and giving all the glory to the Lord. Be canonical in romance, by either practicing celibacy or monogamous marriage.
Be aware of secular language and spiritual language. Many are proficient in secular language and secular culture. Few are proficient in spiritual language and spiritual culture.
Some people prefer the useless yoke of ego rather than the easy yoke of the Lord. The easy yoke of the Lord is chastity, charity, and obedience. (See Rom. 6:18).
The good life is the life of charity, humility, and continence, not the life of greed, vanity, and pleasure.
We live in a material world but we should not be attached to it, that is, to wealth, glory, or pleasure. We should practice charity, humility, and continence.
If you partake of Lord Jesus you will be crucified to the world, detached from wealth, glory, and pleasure, and living a life of charity, humility, and continence.
The world is attached to wealth, glory, and pleasure, and suffers when it encounters material loss, dishonor, and physical hardship. The Orthodox Christian is unshaken by material loss, dishonor, or physical hardship.
Be aggressive towards the acquisition of virtue and wisdom. A passive effort will not advance you to the perfection of virtue and wisdom.
The yoke of ego will only hold you back. Let go of the yoke of ego and move forward in the life of gospel virtue and gospel wisdom.
Move forward and do not be held back by physical or psychiatric disabilities.
All that we have seen from false leaders has been wars and disputes, greed, vanity, and pleasure. True leaders reject the yoke of ego and inspire charity, humility, and continence.
Ego creates political disputes in every community, especially amongst the members of Christ. Practice humility, respect, and love towards all members of Christ and political disputes will cease.
Lord Jesus makes a personal covenant, the New Covenant, with every person who believes in Him. Every believer is crucified to wealth, glory, and pleasure, and resurrected to a life of faith, charity, humility, and continence.
Every believer in Lord Jesus must enter the rite of death and resurrection from greed, vanity, and pleasure, and into the life of faith, charity, humility, and continence.
We must seek refuge in Lord Jesus. Lord Jesus will cast out from us the passions and the demons.
Abstain from all prodigality: Overeating, overdrinking, greed, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, pederasty, bestiality. Be logical and continent.
Be aggressive with your own faults and lenient with the faults of others. Without aggression you will never change, you will never move forward.
Study the rites of the Orthodox Christian Faith. Partaking of these rites is necessary for salvation.
Orthodox Christianity is a love story. A story of love of God, love of neighbor, and the events of this love story.
Be a physician of the world, treating the psychological disabilities and physical disabilities of the world. Help all to move forward, to attain perfection in virtue, knowledge, and spiritual gifts.
Do you see what shame comes from prodigality? Do you see what shame comes from love of wealth? Do you see what shame comes from pride?
Beware of prodigality. Beware of love of wealth. Beware of pride.
Never be too passive. Follow the middle way of moderate aggression.
Repentance is for the aggressive. You must say: “I’ve had enough of this!” You must turn to Lord Jesus and say: “Lord Jesus atone me the sinner and have mercy on me!”
Be independent. Be supported by the positive opinion of others. Do not be swayed by the negative opinion of others, but have a positive attitude that tests all things.
Do you feel guilt due to transgression? You must repent, confess, and correct yourself. Turn to Lord Jesus and become a member of Lord Jesus. The members of Lord Jesus are the chosen ones, the remnant. (See Rom. 9:27).
Who is sinless, passionless, or demonless? No one. We all need Lord Jesus to deliver us from sins, passions, and demons.
You can have practice without theory in the Orthodox Christian life, but you cannot have theory without practice. Practice is the first step, theory is the second step. Theory without practice is the way of delusion.
Virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts is the nature of the Lord. We do not have these by nature but by partaking of the grace of the Lord. That is why the unbelievers cannot have these gifts to a high degree. All glory for virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts belongs to the Lord.
What does a secular person seek? Wealth, glory, and comforts. What does an Orthodox Christian seek? Charity, humility, and continence.
When you are prompted to speak or practice, always test your thoughts, words, and practices, and then do them. (See 1 Thess. 5:21). All thoughts, words, and practices must be tested before they are accepted.
Practice perfect chastity, perfect charity, and perfect obedience.
Have no mercy towards your own faults. Be aggressive and unmerciful, otherwise you will never correct them.
Have no mercy for your faults. Hate them with perfect hatred.
You must have no mercy for your own sins, passions, and demons. But you should show mercy to your neighbor’s sins and passions.
Be a practicing member of the Orthodox Christian Church. Do not rebel and separate from this membership.
Chastity, charity, and obedience are the source of every blessing.
You must fight and defeat the three giants: Lust, love of wealth, and pride. First, you must fight lust. Second, you must fight love of wealth. And third, you must fight pride. With hope in Lord Jesus, effort, and devotion to the spiritual life, you will gain victory over the three giants.
Factional fighting exists for every idea. Every idea has the three factions: Acceptors, Rejectors, and Neutrals.
Remember the three steps in every relationship: Humility, Respect, and Love. A husband and wife must keep these three steps.
Salvation is of the Jews. (See John 4:22). But now salvation is of the Greeks. (See Rom. 1:16).
The good we receive is from the economy of God. The evil is from the judgment of God. We should thank God both for His economy and for His judgment. (See 1 Thess. 5:18). In both cases there is acting the justice of God.
When the teachers are healthy and full of virtue and wisdom, they impart these to their disciples. Their life teaches as well as their words.
What is the point in having read five hundred volumes of Patrology, and not practicing chastity, charity, and obedience?
Say a powerful “No” to the dragon, and practice chastity, charity, and obedience.
Practice always chastity, charity, and obedience. Let death find you practicing chastity, charity, and obedience.
The Lord governs the world with goodness and judgment. Both the good and the judgment are from the economy and justice of the Lord.
An Orthodox Christian must give witness that the yoke of Lord Jesus is joy, and that the yoke of the world, that is, the yoke of ego, is sorrow.
Have perfect chastity, perfect charity, and perfect obedience.
The Lord gives you a cross according to your strength. Thank the Lord and bear your cross with faith, hope, and patience.
Who will cure the tyranny, poverty, and disease of the world?
Let death find you practicing chastity, charity, and obedience.
What does the five hundred volumes of Patrology teach? It teaches chastity, charity, and obedience.
The Lord gives us a cross of tyranny, poverty, physical illness, or psychological illness for our salvation. The cross has as its aim our salvation.
Be a good householder of your soul and a good householder of your body. Guard your soul from wrong thoughts and wrong feelings. Guard your body from wrong practices.
Are you innocent of sins, passions, and demons? If not, turn to the Lord in repentance and confession and correction, and return to the innocence of non-sin, non-passion, and non-demon.
The good life is the sinless life, the passionless life, the demonless life. The good life is the life of return to innocence: sinless, passionless, demonless.
The non-good life is the life of sins, passions, and demons. Wealth, glory, and pleasure cannot be the good life, for the guilt of greed, vanity, and pleasure cannot give an innocent conscience. O, how blessed is an innocent conscience!
Sin is an infinite error that can be resolved only by the blood of Lord Jesus. Outside of Lord Jesus the infinite error remains, and condemns the sinner to eternal jail.
Mistakes are finite errors. Sins are infinite errors. Mistakes need restitution. Sins need atonement.
Remember that you must not sin. Repent, confess, and never sin again. These decisions are essential for correction. Mourn unceasingly for your sin. Recall that it is an infinite error that needs atonement.
True repentance is to stop practicing a particular sin. Stop, confess, mourn, practice virtue, these are the steps of true repentance.
The aim of the Lord is to bring us to humility. When we come to humility everything becomes easy, simple, joyous, blessed.
Stop sin! Stop the sinful thought! Stop the sinful feeling! Stop the sinful urge! Make a firm decision to stop sin!
Consider your finite debts and your infinite debts. Your finite debts are your errors. Your infinite debts are your sins. You must resolve your finite debts with restitution and correction. You must resolve your infinite debts with repentance, confession, penance, and correction.
True repentance is to practice the opposite to your sins: Chastity instead of unchastity, charity instead of non-charity, obedience instead of disobedience.
We must be New Testament persons, shining with grace and virtue, shining with chastity, charity, and obedience.
The best missionary work is to shine with grace, virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts. This is the true missionary work. If you do not have grace, virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts, how can you speak of them? First practice, and then teach. Your practice teaches better than your words.
A sage desires nothing for himself. Neither wealth, nor glory, nor comforts. The only desire of the sage is to complete the work the Lord has assigned him, to reach perfection in chastity, charity, and obedience.
Are you an Old Testament person or a New Testament person? The Old Testament person practices imperfect chastity, imperfect charity, and imperfect obedience. The New Testament person practices perfect chastity, perfect charity, and perfect obedience. Imperfection or perfection in these virtues reveals the Old or New Testament person.
Tyranny, dishonor, material loss, physical illness, and psychological illness, are common experiences in life. The Lord uses all these to call us to repentance, virtue, and salvation.
Consider your cyclic practice of virtue. You must aim to perfect your cyclic practice. As you proceed in your cyclic practice, sins and passions will diminish.
Be detached from your neighbor and practice your cyclic practice of virtue. Remember that if you avoid imitating the cyclic wrong of passions that your neighbor practices, you will progress in cyclic virtue.
The mind is the forerunner of the heart. First goes logic and then love follows.
We can practice goodness only with the Lord co-working with us. No good thought, good idea, or good word is ours, all belong to the Lord.
All the good we have is a gift of the Lord. All the wrong is from our wrong choices.
