Written by Greg Pantelidis BSc(Hons)
gregpantelidis@gmail.com
1. The heart must keep the law of Lord Jesus. The mind must keep the law of Lord Jesus. The tongue must keep the law of Lord Jesus. The body must keep the law of Lord Jesus.
2. Do not exalt in heart. Do not exalt in mind. Do not exalt in tongue. Do not exalt in body.
3. Keep your needs to only what is essential. Reject luxury.
4. Stop your addiction to food. Stop your addiction to possessions (including knowledge). Stop your addiction to glory. Stop your addiction to romance. Instead eat canonically. Possess (material things and knowledge) canonically. Seek non-glory. Practice canonical romance.
5. First, love God with all your heart and mind. Second, love your neighbor as yourself.
6. Honor every person. Honor young and old, but do not seek honor in return.
7. If you humble yourself you will be exalted. (Matt. 23:12 and Luke 18:14).
8. What do you want to be? Humble and just or proud and sinful?
9. What has value in life is virtue and spiritual knowledge. Food, possessions (including secular knowledge), glory, and romance, should be used for the sake of virtue and spiritual knowledge.
10. The sacrifice of the Cross is the atonement for the sins of the world. The Cross fulfills natural justice.
11. Practice fasting, charity, humility, chastity, and prayer. This is spiritual law.
12. We go from betrothal to Lord Jesus to marriage to Lord Jesus. Sinners go from betrothal to Gehenna to marriage to Gehenna.
13. First place for an Orthodox Christian is to take the last place. (Mark 9:35).
14. Do not exalt in opinion. Have humility of opinion. Do not exalt in will. Have humility of will.
15. Do you want to be good and wise? Then honor and obey your father and mother. Do you want to increase in grace and virtue? Then honor and obey your spiritual father.
16. Reject the hidden things: blasphemies, vanities, fornications. (2 Cor. 4:2).
17. Do nothing that goes against natural law and spiritual law.
18. Reject ungodly competition and practice godly competition.
19. The world, that is the secular church, only understands natural justice. The Orthodox Christian Church understands both natural justice and spiritual justice.
20. A person who practices natural justice: good for good, evil for evil, neutrality for neutrality; cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Only a person who practices spiritual justice: good for good, good for evil, good for neutrality; can enter the kingdom of heaven.
21. You must retire from worldly pursuits and pursue virtue and spiritual knowledge.
22. Be delivered from the passions. You can then help others to be delivered.
23. Deliver your neighbor from pride, lawlessness, and despair.
24. We reap what we sow. The evil we do returns to us. The good we do returns to us.
25. Practice self-denial, obedience, and humility, and you will always have joy.
26. The world has need of deliverers, not of those who only teach.
27. Lord Jesus is our deliverer. He delivers us from pride, lawlessness, and despair.
28. Do you want to be married to the virtues? Then live the spiritual life. Do not be married to the vices. Marriage to the vices is the carnal and psychical life.
29. Practice perfect love towards God and perfect love towards neighbor.
30. Practice perfect humility towards God and perfect humility towards neighbor.
31. A young person who doesn’t honor and obey their father and mother will come to grief. The dragon will lead them to every impiety. They will become drunkards, fornicators, thieves, revilers, blasphemers, outcasts.
32. Guard your mind. When a lawless thought appears reject it. Guard your heart. When a lawless feeling appears reject it.
33. You must have the three fears. The fear of Gehenna. The fear of the Judgment of Lord Jesus. And the fear of losing God.
34. The first or initial fear is the fear of Gehenna. The second or middle fear is the fear of God’s Judgment. The third or perfect fear is the fear of being displeasing to God.
35. Support one another, both in bodily needs and in spiritual needs.
36. Do not practice what is religiously illegal.
37. We are given time to separate from our passions. Our life on earth should be used to separate from the passions and obtain the virtues.
38. You must practice New Testament justice, not only Old Testament justice.
39. A hero is he who practices spiritual law: fasting, charity, humility, chastity, prayer.
40. If you are proud and lawless you will be unhappy. Only if you are humble and lawful will you be happy.
41. We are betrothed to Grace in this life. In the other life we will be married to Grace.
42. You must die to the world to live the life of grace.
43. Die to wealth, glory and pleasure, and live the life of grace.
44. Live the life of non-wealth, non-glory, and non-pleasure, and you will become rich in grace.
45. The Orthodox Christian life has two forms: the social life and the solitary life. In the social life you suffer from the voluntary temptations of wealth, glory, and pleasure, and the involuntary temptations of tyranny, poverty, and disease. In the solitary life you suffer from the temptations of lethargy, sorrow, vanity, pride, and love of possessions. (See St John of the Ladder, Step 27, On stillness, Part 2, Text 9).
46. If you love God you will transcend wealth, glory, and pleasure and will love you neighbor as yourself.
47. Know the mystery of grace. The mystery of virtue. The mystery of knowledge. The mystery of spiritual gifts.
48. Reject non-canonical thoughts. Reject non-canonical feelings. Reject non-canonical words. Reject non-canonical works.
49. Lord Jesus is the Deliverer. (See Rom. 11:26, Is. 59:20). He delivers us from pride, lawlessness, and despair. Lord Jesus has given the power to his apostles to deliver the people from pride, lawlessness, and despair.
50. Do not be high-minded. Do not be high-hearted.
51. There are four modes of life on earth. The carnal life, the psychical life, the natural life, and the spiritual life. Each of these lives keeps the corresponding law. The carnal life keeps carnal law. The psychical life keeps psychical law. The natural life keeps natural law. The spiritual life keeps spiritual law.
52. There are four types of person. The carnal person, the psychical person, the natural person, and the spiritual person.
53. God came in the flesh. He practiced natural law and spiritual law. He taught spiritual law. He cured disease and disability. He cast out demons. He raised the dead. He performed miracles of various kinds. He bore the sin of the world. He died and descended to Hades. Was resurrected on the third day. Gave the authority to bind and loose sins to his apostles. Ascended into heaven. Sent the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Will come again to judge the living and the dead. Will assign all humanity to either Heaven or Hell.
54. Do you have non-glory as glory, non-wealth as wealth, and non-pleasure as pleasure?
55. Evil is illegal. Do not live the illegal life.
56. Control you desire for food, possessions (including knowledge), glory, and romance. Instead desire God.
57. Desire fasting, charity, non-glory, and non-romance.
58. The world desires food, possessions (including knowledge), glory, and romance. The Orthodox Christian desires virtue, spiritual knowledge, spiritual gifts, and spiritual consolation.
59. The world defines happiness as the abundance of food, possessions (including knowledge), glory, and romance. The Orthodox Christian defines happiness as grace, virtue, spiritual knowledge, spiritual gifts, and spiritual consolation.
60. Love non-glory, non-wealth, and non-pleasure.
61. The world loves glory, wealth, and pleasure. The Orthodox Christian loves non-glory, non-wealth, and non-pleasure.
62. The aim of our life on earth is to become vessels of grace, virtue, and spiritual knowledge.
63. Be free of self. Practice self-denial.
64. Consider the following temptations. Temptation of thought. Temptation of desire. Temptation of anger. Temptation when our neighbor has desire. Temptation when our neighbor has anger. The first three are voluntary temptations. The last two are involuntary temptations.
65. Pray that God’s will be done in your needs and problems. God knows what is to your benefit.
66. Never sadden anyone.
67. God will solve your problems according to your benefit. Have perfect trust in His providence.
68. Our work is to support our brethren rise to the heights of virtue.
69. Reject demonic thoughts. Reject demonic desire. Reject demonic anger.
70. What do you desire, the wealth of virtue or the wealth of material possessions?
71. The unrepentant are enemies of God.
72. Repent and keep spiritual law.
73. Repent today. Resolve to keep spiritual law today. Resolve to live the spiritual life today.
74. Live and teach the life of Orthodox Christian ethics.
75. The secular church is held by pride, lawlessness, and despair. The Orthodox Christian church lives in humility, lawfulness, and hope.
76. Wear the easy yoke of Lord Jesus. (Matt. 11:30).
77. Do nothing without the blessing of your spiritual father. All success comes from honoring and obeying your spiritual father.
78. Overcome the four addictions: food addiction, possession (including knowledge) addiction, glory addiction, and romance addiction.
79. Be joyful always. (1 Thess. 5:16). Renounce addiction to food, possessions (including knowledge), glory, and romance.
80. From food addiction arises suffering. From possession (including knowledge) addiction arises suffering. From glory addiction arises suffering. From romance addiction arises suffering.
81. The world or secular church has intense competition over food, possessions (including knowledge) glory, and romance. This competition gives rise to wrath, sorrow, lethargy, pride, and envy. (The five secondary vices).
82. The secular church has competition, pride of opinion, pride of will, wrath, hatred, envy, enmity, and rancor.
83. The carnal, psychical and natural person, cling to their likes, dislikes, and neutralities with stubbornness. Only the spiritual person has self-denial and does not cling to their likes, dislikes, and neutralities.
84. Have a contrite and humble mind. Have a contrite and humble heart.
85. Live the life of non-wealth, non-glory, and non-pleasure.
86. Simplify your thinking and follow the middle way of virtue.
87. Seek the canonical functioning of the five senses of the soul, and the five senses of the body.
88. Seek the canonical functioning of the mind, reason, glory, fantasy, and sense-perception. These are the five senses of the soul.
89. The secular church is in decay. Come out of the secular church and join the Orthodox Christian Church.
90. The secular church is heading for greater perversion. Come out of the secular church.
91. Break the four addictions. Break food addiction. Break possession (including knowledge) addiction. Break glory addiction. Break romance addiction.
92. Remember death. Remember judgment. Remember heaven and hell. Remember the Lord.
93. Remember death and Judgment. Therefore greet, give, lend, serve, love.
94. When we wrong our neighbor we create a spiritual disturbance. We must correct this disturbance thru repentance and restitution.
95. Don’t just eat, drink, gather possessions (including knowledge), seek glory, and seek romance. Rather fast, pray, give, lend, serve, honor, love.
96. The secular church seeks only to eat, drink, gather possessions, obtain glory, and obtain romance. The secular church cares nothing for obedience, humility, fasting, and prayer.
97. The secular church is held by the passions. The secular church has the yoke of overeating, stealing and overpossessing, vanity, and unchastity.
98. The Orthodox Christian Church has the yoke of Lord Jesus. (Matt. 11:30).
99. The Orthodox Christian Church has the betrothal of the Spirit in this life. (2 Cor. 5:5).
100. The Orthodox Christian Church will receive the marriage of the Spirit in the other life.
