Written by Greg Pantelidis BSc(Hons)
gregpantelidis@gmail.com
Ego is a spiritual illness that we must cure. Practice obedience, humility, patience, sacrifice, charity, and you will cure the spiritual illness of ego.
There is positive jealousy and there is negative jealousy. Positive jealousy moves us to seek and imitate the good we see in our neighbor. Negative jealousy moves us to feel sorrow and hostility for the good of our neighbor.
(Ps. 50: 19 LXX): “A contrite and humble heart God will not benought.”
People with ego hurt others psychologically. It is difficult to befriend a person with ego, because they constantly hurt you. We must seek the positive in whatever hurts us, and must correct ourselves if we are at fault. The ego person is a physician of bitter medicine for us.
When we pray for someone we should say: “May the Lord grant his servant perfect logic and perfect love.”
The relationship with our closest kin is the most intractable of spiritual relationships. (See Matt. 10:36).
With a stranger you can rise to the heights of spiritual connection. With physical kin this is not the case. That is why physical kin constitute the most intractable of our spiritual connections.
Orthodox Christianity is a relationship with the Lord. It is a relationship of humility, obedience, respect, and love.
All your good ideas are gifts of the Lord. Use your good ideas well, giving glory to the Lord.
Consider your cyclic habits. Consider your good cyclic habits, and consider your moments of dysfunctional cyclic habit. You must perfect your good cyclic habits, pressing ahead in your cyclic practice.
The Lord allows outer problems so that we can have inner progress. Tyranny, poverty, physical illness, and psychological illness, are allowed for our inner progress. The Lord is concerned for inner progress. When we also are concerned for inner progress, outer problems cannot make us sad or despair us.
We should pray to the Lord: “Lord help me reach perfection in chastity, charity, and obedience.”
You should be aggressive in your pursuit of perfect chastity, perfect charity, and perfect obedience.
All persons are called to practice chastity, charity, and obedience. Those who reject the call must not be taken further. We must direct our missionary call to those who wish to practice, and to bear the fruit of chastity, charity, and obedience. (See John 15:2).
“Everything is obtained by labors”, taught the ancients. This applies to every virtue and knowledge.
We must progress in chastity, charity, and obedience. We must aggressively pursue chastity, charity, and obedience. Progress can only come by labors and the help of the Lord. Get to work! Seek progress! Seek perfection in chastity, charity, and obedience!
Always reproach yourself. View any wrong that you encounter as the reaping of what you sowed. See wrong as due to your spiritual debt.
No one can avoid the effect of spiritual law. If you do good a blessing will come upon you. If you do wrong, spiritual law will restore the wrong. There is no escape from spiritual justice!
Do not covet the gifts of your neighbor. Practice your own gifts with chastity, charity, and obedience. Seek the perfection of your own gifts, and wish that your neighbor reaches perfection in his gifts.
Do not seek glory and honor. Seek humility, seek the lowest place, seek the last place.
Material progress is to increase in wealth, glory, and comforts. Spiritual progress is to increase in virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts.
The world is ruled by natural justice, that is, by the golden rule, or symmetry. The Orthodox Christian Church is ruled by spiritual justice, that is, the Providence of the Lord, the Justice of the Lord.
Orthodox Christian ethics can be summarized in four words: Greet, give, serve, love.
Seek perfection in virtue. Seek perfection in faith, fasting, charity, prayer, humility, obedience, truth-speaking, and chastity. You must aggressively move forward in these virtues, resisting the three opposers: the body, the world, and the dragon.
Both the world and Orthodox Christians may possess wealth, glory, and comforts. The difference though between the world and Orthodox Christians is that the world is attached to wealth, glory, and comforts, but Orthodox Christians are detached from wealth, glory, and comforts.
The world sorrows for the loss of wealth, glory, and comforts. The Orthodox Christian sorrows for the loss of virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts.
Towards our neighbor, aggressive psychology and passive psychology are both problematic. The middle way of active psychology allows us to act with logic and love.
Accept only right thoughts. Remember that all wrong begins as a wrong thought.
Remember that wealth, glory, and comforts without virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts do not have true value.
Orthodox Christianity is heroism, love of honor, logical drunkenness, a mystical festival!
What is tormenting you? An addiction? A habit? A passion? A demon? Turn to Lord Jesus, together with your own effort, and you will overcome your torment.
Remember that each person sees events subjectively, and sees the positives and negatives from their view. We must not accept negative opinions easily, but must always see the positive with right thoughts.
Do not be only humble-clothed, but be also humble-hearted, humble-minded, and humble-tongued.
After death we are assigned to be with our virtue-kin or our vice-kin.
The Lord calls us to offer the sacrifice of chastity, charity, and obedience. To be devoted to the Lord is to practice chastity, charity, and obedience.
Will you devote yourself to the Lord through chastity, charity, and obedience?
Offer to the Lord chastity, charity, and obedience, and He will grant you everything.
Rejoice gallant ones! The life in Lord Jesus is a continuous festival!
May you go to perfection in chastity, charity, and obedience!
Practicing something new is difficult in the beginning. With persistence and zeal it becomes easier and easier. You must practice chastity, charity, and obedience with persistence and zeal until they become easy. Seek perfection in chastity, charity, and obedience!
Have you been redeemed from the curse of unchastity, non-charity, and disobedience? (See Gal. 3:13).
The aim of life is to attain salvation: to attain perfection in virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts.
Do not mourn for the loss of wealth, glory, or comforts. Seek charity, humility, and continence.
The Lord allows the problems of tyranny, poverty, physical illness, and psychological illness, for our salvation. All these problems assist us to attain perfection in virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts. If we see this aim in problems, we will always give thanks and move forward. (See 1 Thess. 5:18).
Offer your heart with honesty to the Lord. (See Ps. 7:10). Offer your mind with faith to the Lord. Offer your body with obedience to the Lord.
What can you do today? You must practice good today. You must repent of wrong today. You must be reconciled to the Lord today. Today is all there is. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is not yet.
To “turn the other cheek” and “go the extra mile”, are ideas which should be considered both literally, and metaphorically. In fact, the metaphorical is the more common.
Harsh words, harsh countenance, or harsh behavior, move us to anger, sorrow, rancor, and enmity. We must “turn the other cheek” to harshness, forgiving and blaming our own spiritual debt for the harshness. Remember we reap what we sow. (See Gal. 6:7).
Are you gathering the spiritual wealth of charity, humility, prayer, and continence?
The Lord shields us from temptations and sufferings.
Hide your spiritual practice from others. This way you practice without vanity and hindrance.
Do not have a heart that is closed due to self-love. Open your heart, to love God and love others.
We must respect the right of others to practice or to not practice chastity, charity, and obedience. Gospel virtue must be voluntary, and practiced with zeal, aggression, and force.
Our spiritual practice has three levels: First practice, second practice, and third practice. We must seek to reach third practice in chastity, charity, and obedience.
Beware of the three giants: Lust, love of wealth, and pride. Practice chastity, charity, and humility.
Are you a sheep within, or are you a goat within? (See Matt. 25:32).
Be diligent in your daily practice of chastity, charity, and obedience.
Practice daily chastity, charity, and obedience. These three will teach you all things.
Remember to abide in Orthodox Christian daily practice: Faith, fasting, charity, prayer, humility, obedience, study, and chastity.
Orthodox Christians must shine with the light of the Lord. We must attain the light and transmit it to the world. (See Matt. 5:14).
Do all things with an honest heart: Greet, give, serve, love, work. An honest heart is a heart of light, a true heart.
Consider that the Lord has a mission for you. On your way to salvation, you must fulfill the personal mission the Lord has ordained for you. You have your mission, and others have their mission.
What are young people to do if the elders are unchaste, lovers of wealth, or proud? A young person must not follow such elders, but elders who practice chastity, charity, humility, and obedience.
You can do all things through faith in the Lord. You can do all works, but only if the Lord is willing. You can cure, you can help, you can resurrect, but only if the Lord is willing. (See Mark 9:23).
Those who believe in Lord Jesus can do all things. (See Phil. 4:13).
Wealth, glory, and comforts have value when you use them altruistically, that is, for the good of others.
Are you a node of spiritual consciousness, or a node of material consciousness? Spiritual consciousness is the way of chastity, charity, and obedience. Material consciousness is the way of unchastity, non-charity, and disobedience.
You must be spiritual salt, salting the world from unchastity, love of wealth, and pride.
A missionary who brings the light of Lord Jesus, does not dispute with people. To reject the light is a basic right and need not be a cause for contention. A steward of the light of Lord Jesus rejoices with those who accept the light, and sorrows for those who reject it.
We must lift up our neighbor who is in a state of sorrow, discouragement, or low-spirit, giving them faith, hope, and zeal in the Lord.
Test your thoughts. Test your ideas. Do everything with testing. (See 1 Thess. 5:21).
We must give thanks for all things. (See 1 Thess. 5:18). Everything that comes to us, whether good or harsh, is from the economy of the Lord.
Direct your aggressive psychology not to the acquisition of wealth, glory, and comforts, but to the acquisition of virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts.
It is natural that as you progress in life you will increase in wealth, glory, and comforts. What has value though, is increase in virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts. When death comes wealth, glory, and comforts have no value. What has value when death comes is virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts.
When death comes wealth, glory, and comforts have no value. What has value when death comes is charity, humility, and continence.
All our good works must be offered to the Lord, in order to receive from the Lord grace and mercy.
Ask and you will receive. Always strive to obtain. Trust in the economy of the Lord.
Joy does not come from lust, love of wealth, or pride. Joy comes from chastity, charity, and humility.
Lasting joy does not come from wealth, glory, or comforts. Lasting joy comes from altruism in wealth, glory, and comforts.
What has value is altruistic wealth, altruistic glory, and altruistic comforts.
Do not covet another person’s wealth, glory, or comforts.
Why does the Lord allow tyranny, poverty, physical illness, and psychological illness? The Lord allows these things for our salvation, to bring us to repentance, virtue, wisdom, and spiritual gifts.
Psychological illness should be treated both with psychological science and with Orthodox Christian spirituality. Both these methods should be used to treat psychological illness.
The Lord gives physical illness and psychological illness for our salvation. Do not lose hope.
Those who do not repent and partake of the sacrifice of Lord Jesus die in their sins. Only repentance and the Cross of Lord Jesus can save us from sin and its consequences.
Every Orthodox Christian teacher cares for the canonical physical functioning and canonical psychological functioning of persons. The canonical psychological functioning comes from practicing faith, fasting, charity, prayer, humility, obedience, truth-speaking, study, work, and chastity.
Canonical mental functioning is to always think good and right thoughts, and to reject wrong thoughts.
Lord Jesus has given the canonical Orthodox Confessor priests the gift to forgive sins. We must go to these Confessor priests to confess our sins and be forgiven. Without repentance and confession there is no salvation. (See Matt. 18:18).
An Orthodox Christian missionary does not dispute with unbelievers, because he wishes to give the Light of Lord Jesus to them. If they refuse to receive the Light of Lord Jesus he does not insist, but weeps that they reject the Light of Lord Jesus.
Canonical mental functioning is guarding of the mind, prayer, meditation, and contemplation. We must seek canonical mental functioning.
Turn to the Lord in repentance, confession, and obedience, to be cured of your mental dysfunctions.
The rites of the Orthodox Christian Faith are the portals to sanctification and salvation.
There is good zeal and there is cunning zeal. Cunning zeal is the hostile state called jealousy.
Seek peace, that is, shalom. Seek order, that is, siddur.
Good mental functioning will allow you to live a quality life. Negative mental functioning will make your life a torment.
When death comes wealth has no value, charity has value then. When death comes glory has no value, humility has value then. When death comes comforts have no value, continence has value then.
We do not understand the likes, dislikes, and neutralities of other persons, nor their mission. We must practice our mission and our goals.
Practice chastity, charity, and obedience, and they will teach you all things.
Practice perfect chastity, perfect charity, and perfect obedience, and they will teach you all things.
Observe and compare Orthodox Christian culture with secular culture. See the beauty and majesty of Orthodox Christian culture.
