God's will, Christian sermons

God's Will

Today we will talk about the will of God.

Speaking of this, I mean two main questions:

1. What does God want from a person?

What is the will of God regarding people, you and, most importantly, regarding myself. Is this the will of God, is it the same for everyone or is it different for you and me?

Maybe I or you are special, so God wants us something special?

2. How should a person act and live in order to make this life pleasing to Christ our Lord?

Here are two very important questions that we will try to analyze today.

Speaking about faith, undoubtedly, faith is the most important question of what God wants from a person, but the question of faith is not so simple, because there are a lot of misconceptions about faith. We see how many varieties of faith there are in this world – hundreds, maybe thousands. Is that what God wants, or does God have only one way?

God from the creation of the world has plans for man, and man is not abandoned by the Lord, and God desires that each person seek and find the Lord and live in harmony with him.

(Acts 17:27)

27 so that they may seek God, whether they feel him or find him, though he is not far from each of us:

In order to make it possible for a person to know who God is and what is the will of God in relation to a person, God manifested himself, declared Himself through His prophets and left us in the Holy Scriptures all the necessary instructions and laws sufficient for a person to know Who is God and what does He want from a person.

(Deut. 30:15-20)

15 Behold, today I have set before you life and good, death and evil.

16 [I] commandments which I command you today, love the Lord your God, walk in his ways, and keep his commandments and his ordinances and his laws you will live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land where you are going to take possession of it;

17 But if your heart is turned away, and you will not listen, and you will go astray, and you will worship other gods and serve them,

18 then I declare to you today that you will perish and will not stay long in the land, for the possession of which you cross the Jordan.

19 Today I call heaven and earth to witness before you: I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose life, that you and your offspring may live,

20 loved the Lord your God, listened to his voice and clung to him; for in this is your life and the length of your days, that you may dwell on the land which the Lord promised with an oath to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to give them.

We reading:

First of all, God for a person is not some kind of application in his life, as if saying: "if you want to live as God wants, but if you want, live on your own." The Lord immediately warned us people that the matter concerns not some insignificant issues, but it concerns life and death, good and evil.

God said that I will give you, man, My commandments, laws and instructions. If you, a man, will fulfill these commandments, then God will bless you and your offspring. Here we are talking not only about the promised land, for us it is a matter of eternity.

If a person does not follow the instructions of God, then the Lord says: "you will perish and not stay long on earth" Thus, the question of obedience to God is not a matter of little importance or secondary, but it is a matter of life and death, good and evil, blessings and curses. This is Man's decision to do or not to do the will of God has eternal consequences.

Second questionWhat are God's requirements for man? What should a person do?

What did the Lord say to this?

16 ... to love the Lord thy God,

20 ... listened to His voice and cleaved to Him – believe, trust

Third question Is it possible to fulfill the will of God if you only know the law and try to fulfill it?

We see that this is only one of the requirements of God - walk in His ways and keep His commandments, but there are two more points - love and believe.

Why were the Pharisees the first enemies of Christ? After all, they knew the law perfectly and tried to fulfill it. Then why could they not understand and do the will of God? Because they could not fulfill two more conditions that the Lord established - love and believe they could not, left these instructions, did not seek and did not ask for it. Therefore, answering the question, is it possible to fulfill the will of God - knowing and fulfilling the law? Christ answered.

(Mat. 23:23-26)

23 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you give tithes of mint, anise, and cumin, and left the most important thing in the law: judgment, mercy and faith; this was to be done, and that not to be abandoned.

24 Blind leaders, who strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel!

25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, while inside they are full of theft and unrighteousness.

26 Blind Pharisee! cleanse first the inside of the cup and dish, so that their outside may also be clean.

You and I must understand that God wants to see His creation like Jesus Christ, having soul, spirit, and body perfect, not defiled. In the matter of doing the will of God, we must be sincere. We cannot please God if we follow any part of His instructions. It doesn't work with God, because God cannot be deceived.

When Christ began His ministry, He immediately declared the main Will of God:

(Mark 1:15)

15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent and believe in the gospel.

Brother has said in previous sermons that faith itself is a part of a person's personality. God created man in His image and likeness - a personality, and put faith into the basis of a human personality. The entire worldview and mind of a person, his principles, morals, way of thinking, and other components of personality are built on the faith of a person. If faith is taken away from a person, then there will be no personality, it will be a person with a disorder of consciousness and psyche, he will be lost. Therefore, it becomes clear when in a conversation with a person about faith, as a rule, in 90% we will hear: "I believe." And these people do not deceive, they really have faith.

Then the second question should be asked: “If you are a believer, what is the will of God regarding your life? How should you act to please God? Those. is your faith the faith of God? Will there be an understandable and clear answer from such a believer? - usually not.

Because if a person does not know God, then he does not know the will of God, and he begins to believe in anything: rituals, divination, rituals, traditions, signs, miracles, luck, success, a healthy lifestyle, vegetarianism, UFOs, aliens, humanoids , rebirth, reincarnation and other nonsense. A person fills his inner emptiness with anything and begins to sincerely believe in it. Thus, such a mixture of all kinds of human delusions is obtained that Christ was indignant about it.

(John 5:43,44)

43 I have come in the name of my Father, and you do not receive me; but if another comes in his name, you will receive him.

44 How can you believe when you receive glory from one another, but do not seek the glory that is from the One God?

The way of salvation is one for all people through repentance and faith in the Gospel. If a person wants to find another way, or he considers himself special, that God should do something special for him, then this is not the faith of God. This is not the path that Christ pointed out. And the path of such a person is not the path of fulfilling the will of God, it is not the path of the Gospel, such a person does not fulfill the will of God, but fulfills some other will. As a rule, their own, human, selfish will, in other words, their own lusts, and this has nothing to do with Christ.

(1 John 2:17)

17 And the world is passing away, and its lust, but he who does the will of God abides forever.

The question of salvation is the same for everyone, and the way is the same for everyone, through the knowledge of the truth, which is Christ.

(1 Tim. 2:4)

4 Who wants all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

There is a way of salvation indicated to us in the Gospel, indicated to us by Christ. This is the way of fulfilling the Will of God regarding each person.

There are situations in our Christian life when we have a choice to do this or that, and we do not know how to do it right. Living in this world without God, how did we act? According to our understanding, we made a decision quickly so that the problem was solved as soon as possible, and it seemed that we were moving forward. But it turned out that they were going nowhere, because they did not consider God, His will.

But in Christ we no longer act like that, we do not make hasty decisions, but turn to Christ, and He shows us the way.

(Jer. 29:11-13)

11 For [only] I know the intentions that I have for you, says the Lord, intentions for good, and not for evil, to give you a future and hope.

12 And call to me, and go and pray to me, and I will hear you;

13 And you will seek me and find me, if you seek me with all your heart.

(Ps.24:12)

12 Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will show him the path to take.

In this case, a temptation may arise for those who are looking for other ways, special ways, who do not want to part with their “wealth”: sins, views, opinions, selfishness. A person who has not gone through the path of repentance and faith does not have the forgiveness of sins, he is a sinner:

(John 9:31)

31 But we know that God does not listen to sinners; but who honors God and does His will, that listens.

For a person who does not have peace with God, whose conscience condemns, there is only one way of the corresponding will of God - the way of repentance and faith in Christ: repent and believe in the gospel.

It often happens that a person invents for himself that he has received some special revelations - this, as a rule, is a seduction, conceit, a manifestation of pride, and a person falls into delusions and networks.

For you and me, the example of doing the will of God is Christ. Let's look at the Scriptures, how Jesus acted to do the will of God. Christ came precisely in order to indicate this way of fulfilling the will of God, the way of salvation. And here we come to the second question of our sermon today:

What must a person do to fulfill the will of God?

(Mat. 6:9,10)

9 Pray thus: Our Father who art in heaven! hallowed be thy name;

10 Thy kingdom come; may Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;

Brothers, is the will of God – is it good, is it good, for good? In heaven, the will of God is fulfilled, there is His kingdom, and He is the king, and everyone listens to Him and fulfills His will - the will of God. Christ wants that here on earth, and I, and you, and all people do the will of God. Christ wants this to be in our heart all the time, for His will to be in our lives here on earth.

(Mat. 7:21)

21 Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord!” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but doing the will of my Father in heaven.

The Lord clearly says that it is not enough just to know and be able to speak and reason about God. What you have learned about God must be realized in your life, otherwise this knowledge will be a source of additional condemnation, greater severity and punishment by God in relation to those who knew and did not fulfill.

(John 4:31-34)

31 Meanwhile the disciples asked Him, saying: Rabbi! eat.

32 But He said to them, I have food that you do not know.

33 Wherefore the disciples said to one another, Who brought him food?

34 Jesus says to them: My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.

(John 6:38)

38 for I Christ came down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of the Father who sent me.

Christ came to earth with one purpose - to fulfill the will of the Father. And this is an example for us, how we should live on this earth doing the will of God.

(John 7:16-18)

16 Jesus answering them said, My teaching is not mine, but that of him who sent me;

17 who wants to do His will, he will know about this teaching, whether it is from God, or whether I speak from Myself.

18 He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of Him who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

Whoever wants to do the will of God will know that the Gospel that Christ proclaimed is from God. Let's remember when we came to Christ, how the Lord convinced us - By my truth.

Christ pointed out that our life is not going right, we ourselves understood this, but we ourselves could not change our life and make it right. But when they turned to God, Christ illuminated all our darkness and showed us the way. And we made a decision not to live according to our personal human will, which destroyed our lives, but to accept and do the will of God, because we realized that His will is for our good. And when we accepted the will of God, our whole life changed, everything fell into place: relationships with God, relationships with others, attitude towards ourselves.

How to distinguish human will from God's will? The Lord said: 18 He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory. The human will always, I emphasize always, seeks glory for itself. Selfishness is nothing but the human will, my will which egoism will never yield to anyone, and will not give honor to anyone but itself.

And whoever seeks glory for Him who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. And whoever seeks the glory of God will do the will of God. How is it possible to give glory to God? Only on one condition - if you transgress through your Self, your desires and interests, if you do not give glory to yourself and observe your own will, but accept the will of God for yourself.

(Luke 22:41-42)

41 And he himself departed from them to throw a stone (some distance), and knelt down and prayed,

42 saying: Father! Oh, that You would deign to carry this cup past Me! however not my will, but yours be done.

An example of Christ, when he understood that suffering, humiliation and death awaited Him ahead. As a man He experienced fear, His flesh was afraid and did not want to suffer, and His human will resisted what awaited him. And the worst thing is that Christ knew that the wrath of God would be poured out on Him for all the sins of people, including mine and yours. On the Righteous One, who was without sin, and He bore the punishment for all the sins of the world - this was the most painful thing in the sufferings of Christ.

Therefore, knowing about his suffering, Jesus said: Father! Oh, that You would deign to carry this cup past Me!

But Christ knew that He had to go through this, otherwise the will of God would not be done, otherwise your and my salvation would not be possible, and in the end God would not be glorified. And knowing this, Christ directed all his will to accept and go to fulfill the will of God. And so he said: however, not my will, but yours be done.” Christ, in spite of the coming suffering, directed His will to do the will of God.

Where a person directs his will, that will will be fulfilled by him, because a person always, I repeat always, has a choice:

Man has the choice to say no to sin, it is in the will of man;

Man has the choice to turn to God and kneel before Him;

A person has a choice and an opportunity to humble himself, not to desire glory for himself, but to desire the glory of God.

The choice of a person determines whose will a person will fulfill: their human will and their desires or the will of God.

These decisions of a person determine whose will he will fulfill. Therefore, such statements of a person as:

- "I'm waiting for something to happen in my life"

- "maybe God will give me some revelations and finally I can believe"

No, that's not the point. The fact is that you still have not made a decision to give up your own will, and have not accepted the will of God. Christ has already said everything for you: repent and believe in the Gospel. There is nothing more to say - either you accept it, or go and do your will.

(John 6:39,40)

39 And this is the will of the Father who sent me, that of what he has given me, nothing should be destroyed, but all that should be raised up at the last day.

40 This is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.

From these verses we see: what is God's care for us, what is the responsibility and care of Christ for us. To don't ruin anything but to bring us all to the end, to eternity.

Accordingly, how important and responsible our appeal to Jesus is, how grateful we should be to Jesus, love Him, do His will, keep ourselves in holiness. I repeat, this is not a secondary issue, we see what Christ cares about us, because this is a matter of eternal life and death.

(1 Thess. 4:3-7)

3 For the will of God is your sanctification that you refrain from fornication;

4 so that each of you knows how to keep his vessel in holiness and honor,

5 and not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles, who do not know God;

6 so that you do nothing against your brother unlawfully and covetously: for the Lord is the avenger of all these things, as we also told you and testified before.

7 For God has not called us to uncleanness, but to holiness.

God has freed us from the power of sin. God's will is that we, having received the forgiveness of sins at the beginning of our journey, keep holiness. Holiness is an undeserved gift to us from Christ, which became possible when Jesus overcame fear and rejected human will, turned His will to fulfill the will of God.

(Heb. 10:36-39)

36 You need patience so that doing the will of God, receive the promised;

37 For a little more, a very little while, and the One who comes will come and will not tarry.

38 The righteous will live by faith; but if [anyone] stumbles, my soul does not favor him.

39 But we are not of those who hesitate to perish, but [stand] in faith to the salvation of the soul.

RESULTS. Today we have considered two questions:

1. What is the will of God concerning man.

We are convinced that the will of God is the same for all people: through repentance and faith in Christ, we get the opportunity to fulfill the will of God. In order to fulfill the will of God, we must know it in its entirety, be sincere towards ourselves, so as not to leave something behind. Not to have a religious approach, which is hypocrisy, which shares the will of God, and allows not to fulfill some part of the will of God, which Christ condemned by the example of the Pharisees.

It doesn't work that way with Christ - we have to do the will of God completely.

2. How a person should act.

This is to direct your will to the path of fulfilling the will of God, i.e. properly dispose of their free human will. Do not do your will, selfish, sinful, but do the will of God, choose the Gospel path of salvation, which Christ showed us:

Man must seek God, turn to the Word of God;

Man must believe in Christ;

Through the Word of God, the Holy Spirit convicts a person, and repentance becomes possible;

A person repents before Christ of his sins, and God forgives a person, gives the opportunity to live a new holy life in communion with the living God;

God's will for me.
We can talk about the individual will of God, which concerns you in a particular life situation. The will of God is personal, it belongs to you and may not be repeated in the life of another person. God speaks in a specific situation, in a specific life, in a specific heart. But today I want to talk about the will of God, which globally concerns our life goals, our view of the goal. The Bible says, "Because you are called of God, live worthy of your calling" (Ephesians 4:1). Our life is different from the life of this world. There is a calling to which the Lord called, and there is a life worthy of this calling. God calls us to live worthy of the calling. You and I look forward to one day coming to heaven. But imagine that the heavens have a completely different coordinate system. The earthly human matrix is ​​absolutely biased in relation to God's values. It turns out that His thoughts are not our thoughts, His ways are not our ways. He walks in special ways.
The river of God's blessing flows in the channel of God's will. God's blessing comes directly to a specific person. Scripture says that He commands His sun to rise on the evil and the good, but God has a special relationship with a special category of people.
Exodus 23:25: “Serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water; and I will turn sickness away from you.” God will bless those who serve Him. There are concrete consequences to serving God. Here we are not talking about everyone, but about those people who serve the Lord. And the Bible says that there is a specific connection between serving the Lord and blessing. Our responsibility is to know the will of God and fulfill it on this earth. God's responsibility is to bless us. People “gnaw out” provision, blessing, arrangement in this life with their teeth, but there is a different level of life. When you take care of God's, and God takes care of yours. This does not mean that you are an infantile person, that you have thrown off all responsibility, that you are lying on the couch and just confessing. No. We do what depends on us, but we do not burden ourselves beyond measure, we do not load ourselves with dark, gloomy thoughts and fears. And this sermon is not for those who have not yet tried to do everything on their own. When you have already tried, then there is someone to talk to. You will already have experience on the basis of which you and I can look at this passage of Scripture differently. God has something better for you.
Psalm 96:10: “You who love the Lord, hate evil! He keeps the souls of His saints; delivers them out of the hand of the wicked." You have a job to hate evil. You can hate the devil, demons, evil in yourself. What does hate mean? This is disgust to the point of rejection. We must not accept the stereotypes of this world, human values ​​that are contrary to God's. Scripture says, "Those who love the Lord, hate evil!" Because this action has consequences - you do not live by evil motives, do not act in evil deeds, you turn away from evil in your every way, and the Bible says: “He keeps the souls of His saints; delivers them out of the hand of the wicked." Your work has consequences. Keeps the souls of saints, not strangers, but HIS OWN. Holy means separated, not perfect. In relation to God, this word means perfect, but in relation to people - separated. He keeps the souls of His saints. I want Him to keep you, keep your life.
The river of God's blessing flows in the channel of God's will. When we are in God's will, we are automatically covered naturally by God's blessing. Sometimes we get out of the will of God, do not receive a blessing and are surprised at this. But everything is logical and natural. There is no justice on earth, but God does. And God keeps His justice. And when we expect our blessing from God, then we have two options: either change our expectation, or start doing something with our lives. “Those who love the Lord, hate evil! He keeps the souls of His saints; delivers them out of the hand of the wicked." If we really want to have protection from violence, cruelty, evil people, then God has it. Even the wicked may touch you, chase you and seize you, but the Lord will deliver you out of his hand. Staying in prison did not bode well for Joseph. But the Lord breaks human stereotypes, delivers the wicked from the hand and blesses. In God there is blessing and protection!
Proverbs 22:4: “Humility is followed by the fear of the Lord, riches and glory and life.” Humility comes first in this verse, followed by the following things: riches, glory and life. We need to humble ourselves before God. Humility is manifested only through obedience and doing His will. "If you listen and do." The humility that the Bible speaks of is to enter into the will of God for my life. The will of God, at least in general, which concerns what He wants on this earth. And then for humility in your life will follow, wealth, glory and life. These are companions of humility.
When we talk about humility, we are talking about specific, consistent actions. Luke 6:47-49: “Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and does them, I will tell you to whom he is like. He is like a man who builds a house, who dug, deepened, and laid his foundation upon the rock; why, when there was a flood and the water rushed over this house, it could not shake it, because it was founded on a stone. What does a person who wants to build their own business need? It takes passion and action. A stone that did not allow to shake a person's life. Man dug, deepened and got to the bottom of the main thing, to the unshakable foundation of his life, which will never be shaken. There are no such grounds in the human world. That foundation is only God.
God's will for your life. What does God want you to do? What is a stone for your life? It is God's love for you, God's acceptance of you, God's redemption for your life. This is the knowledge of your God. No matter what trials come to this house, it will stand! And instead of ashes, God will dress in glorious clothes of joy. God will take the hand and glorify the one who loves Him. Where to dig? In itself. The Bible says, "You, like living stones, build yourselves into a spiritual house." We are all delving into other people's problems, sins ... This is the seed that you sow in your life. Your tomorrow will be the way you shape it now. Reason and think like a child of God. This is faith. You are sowing the right seed. This is the Word of God, this is the will of the Lord for us.
1 Peter 4:10: “Serve one another, each with the gift that you have received, as good stewards of the many-sided grace of God.” Do you want to do the will of God? Here it is. Do good to the people around you. We must take care of our neighbors. What's the use of dealing with people you don't like? You don't even know how useful it is. What is the use of a knife that deals with a sharpener? God uses circumstances, and when you and I do not allow any discomfort into our lives, we lose. When you and I go beyond what we like, we achieve benefits for ourselves. Everything that we do not use degrades and disappears from our lives. Serve one another, serve those around us. Serve with the gift you have received. When we do something that we are not called to do, something that we cannot do or do not know how to do, we think about leaving this ministry. That's why the Bible talks about the gift he received. Dig within yourself to unearth the treasure, the gift, the talent that God has placed in you. Pray to God, may the Lord send you wisdom and opportunity. But "each one serve," says the Bible. Because from the true talent that you discover in yourself, your life will flourish. When you do things that are natural to you, you get satisfaction.

Ephesians 5:28-31: “So husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies: he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and warms it, just as the Lord does the Church, because we are members of His body, from His flesh and from His bones. Jesus is the head and you are His body. You are the flesh of Jesus. Jesus doesn't hate you. God is not against you. You are part of the body of Jesus Christ. Jesus loves His body and you are part of His body. Jesus nourishes and warms His Church. If you do not experience this nourishment and warmth, then maybe you are not in the body of the Church? God wants to nourish and warm you. This is His intention.
2 Chronicles 16:9: "For the eyes of the Lord go over the whole earth to sustain those whose hearts are completely devoted to Him." The eyes of the Lord are looking for devoted hearts on this earth. There is no one closer to God on earth than His Church. Like a bridegroom who looks into a crowd of women, He is looking for and looking out for His one and only bride.
Our responsibility is to live according to God's will, and God's responsibility is to bless us. Let's rely on Him, let Him take care of us. You and I can truly be happy when we are convinced that there is One whose eyes survey the whole Earth to support us. Realize yourself in the Body of the Church in a new way. There is no other connection with God than that which is opened through interaction. I wish in your life that you soon give Him a reason to protect you, bless you, so that you see in your life that He nourishes and warms you.

Greetings, dear friends! Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ!

Today I would like to start a conversation on the topic: How to find and fulfill the will of God?

What do we really mean when we ask ourselves the question, "What is God's will for me?" Most people mean by this, “What is God's plan for me in this situation? What is the right decision I should make now?”

We want to receive direction from God in various life circumstances. We want to know the voice of God, because knowing His voice leads to the determination of His will. And God wants each of us to know His will in everything.

It is very important for each of us to hear from God!

The Gospel of Matthew says:

“He answered and said to him, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4).

According to the passage of Scripture above, we are to live by the words that come from the mouth of God. The word "issuing" used in this text indicates an ongoing action, that is, what happened before, continues to happen until now, and will continue to happen in the future.

God speaks today as of old in order to communicate His will to us. That is why it is important for us to know His voice!

The original Greek word here translated "word" is REMA or REMATOS, which means any word that God keeps talking. This does not mean that God continues to add to the Bible, but He still continues to speak to us through His words and through the Holy Spirit. God's word continues to be real and alive to us. Jesus said:

“…The words that I speak to you are spirit and life.” (John 6:63).

This means that the Bible is a talking book filled with the breath of God Himself. The Bible is a living book, bringing life and empowering. God is still speaking to us through this book!

The Holy Spirit filled every word of the Bible with life, and therefore the Bible continues to speak to us today.

The Bible says that the voice of God is over the waters.

“The voice of the Lord over the waters; The God of glory thundered, the Lord over many waters." (Ps. 28:3).

In the Bible, water symbolizes the word of God.

"..to sanctify it, having cleansed it with a bath of water through the word." (Eph. 5:26).

Therefore, behind every verse of the Bible is God Himself and His voice. If we listen carefully, then the written words will come to life and will resound in our heart, making us invincible in various life situations and circumstances.

God is still speaking!

The Bible uses two Greek words that are translated as "word" - this "LOGOS" and "REMA".

LOGOS- this is an expression of thought, this is the embodiment of some concept or idea, and not just the name of something.

For example, the Bible calls Jesus the Word because Jesus embodies God and is the only expression of His will and thoughts.

“And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we have seen his glory, the glory of the only begotten from the Father.” (John 1:14).

God, who at many times and in various ways spoke of old to the fathers in the prophets, in these last days has spoken to us in the Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he created the world. He, being the radiance of His glory and the image of His hypostasis, and holding everything by the word of His power, having accomplished the cleansing of our sins by Himself, sat down at the right hand of the throne of Majesty on high. (Heb. 1:1-3).

REMA- this is what is uttered by a living voice, this is a spoken word or any sound uttered by a voice and having a specific meaning.

REMA- this is a statement aloud of an inner thought about a specific person or situation, about a specific subject or case.

REMA is the personal, living, life-giving word of God.

In other words, REMA - it is a personal appeal of God to a person, to a certain people or a certain group of people.

God speaks to us personally today!

We'll continue tomorrow!

With the peace of God!

Pastor Rufus Adjiboye

So, in relation to the will of God, the experience of the Christian church suggests that type of doing, which is defined by the words "searching" and "fulfillment." The question is quite natural - why is the corresponding subject process defined as a search? After all, they are looking for something that is lost, or some not quite known and not quite understandable object, in which for some reason there is a need. When seeking the will of God, both meanings apply.

The first is because the will of God, although it is objectively revealed in the world and acts gracefully and formidably, has more than once become close and understandable to many people; - subjectively, it was often lost and lost by many, and in order to find it, it is necessary to start searching again.

The second is because the soul, even if it has never known the will of God, is sometimes seized by a vague languor, which makes it clear that there is a certain lack that must be filled. Sometimes something almost directly tells the soul that there is a higher will, undoubtedly exceeding in strength and truth, the usual individual willfulness. This exceeding, which it would be organic to obey, is the will of God. These two words, when considered, produce a strange impression.

On the one hand, there seems to be something here that is self-evidently understandable to any uneducated old woman, who repeats with confidence: "everything is the will of God."

On the other hand, you hear something inexpressibly mysterious, almost dark, that you are looking for (even when you are actively trying to search) with empty hands and you leave empty-handed.

And indeed, is it possible to search when the Word of God Itself says: “Your ways are one thing, and My ways are another thing”?

Probably, many may be confused by the reaction of Christ Jesus to the apparently prudent and merciful words of the Apostle Peter, when he, having learned from Jesus that He would be betrayed and crucified in Jerusalem, exclaimed in a fit of pity: “Let this not be with you, God!" And then Jesus very sharply answered him: “Get away from Me, Satan. Because you don’t know what is God’s and what is human” (). The most striking thing is that just before this, Jesus placed Peter very highly, highlighting him among the apostles when he confessed Him as Christ: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonas, because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you, but my heaven" (). If the chosen disciples of the God-man did not understand His holy will, what can we say about those who did not receive such a high charisma!

But when it seems that all that remains is to reconcile oneself with one's ignorance and even with the impossibility of cognition itself, the heart answers with a resolute "no" to this false humility. The languor of the heart itself is the signal of this “no”. And if the heart wants to know all the truth of God and His will, then all the more so when a person wants to know such truth about himself. Before fulfilling the will of God, one must know what he wants from a person and for what, that is, what is the will of God regarding a person.

God's will for man

In the most general terms, this will is defined in a simple way. is love, and that is precisely why God loves His creations, and among them, first of all, His highest and most precious creation, His Divine image, which must be realized in the ideal likeness of man.

And this was already realized in the very act of creating man. Man, created "by the will of God, loving, good, pleasing and perfect" (), was connected by a living high and mystical connection with his Creator - God.

And when a person, through the fall of his sin-distorted will, breaks this sacred union of love, and, having become lonely without God, enters the historical space of death, the loving will of God regarding a person takes the main direction - to free a person from death. This is salvation. The understanding of the salvation of man by God is revealed in a special theological discipline - soteriology.

In the Old Testament time, the very understanding of salvation stood quite far from the deep theological consciousness and experience characteristic of the New Testament era, and was rather vague, because in fact it was not clear how salvation could be realized. In addition, the experience of death, although it was sometimes existentially deep, but the religious content of this experience was weakly expressed. Rather, in this sense, one could speak of a bitter dead-end feeling. And the whole history of the Old Testament mankind was the history of preparation for the very work of salvation, carried out by the will of God. The spiritual and moral state of mankind by that historical moment when salvation could become real, on the one hand, had to be experienced as a state of complete impossibility of the former existence, and on the other hand, it was necessary to acquire a layer of people morally ready for the perception of salvation.

The moral history of mankind did not develop linearly: some moral ups and downs alternated with deep falls. Moreover, in each period of history, different human strata were simultaneously observed: in some, high moral potentials were revealed, in others, the depths of falls sharply exceeded the average level.

At the same time, a stratum of people was being prepared historically, among whom the saving action of God and the Word of God about salvation would be accepted and not fruitless. Apparently, such a layer of people by the time of the coming to earth and the incarnation of the Son of God was microscopically thin. Only the twelve closest disciples, the apostles and several myrrh-bearing women, constantly followed Christ; and besides them - a certain number of not so consistent and selfless disciples of Jesus, who, unlike the twelve, at times followed Him, and at times returned to their own affairs.

But this is only, apparently, because the very first sermon of the Apostle Peter after the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles immediately added another three thousand people to the number of Christian disciples. Then, especially after the beginning of the preaching work of St. Apostle Paul, their number began to grow rapidly, at first mainly in the Mediterranean Sea, and then captured all of Europe, northern Africa and Asia Minor.

But in any sense, the historical preparation of people for the perception of the coming salvation, accompanied by the vexation of the spirit, was purposefully carried out by God, and thus the entire history of the Old Testament in this sense can be considered as the history of pedagogical preparation for salvation. God's will for the people was to save them; Directly directed to people, this will consisted in the fact that they could and would like to accept and assimilate the gift of salvation offered to them by God.

In the holy pedagogy of the Divine will to save man, the Sinai legislation occupied a special place, and in it the decalogue. It is in the law that the will of God in relation to people is clearly and definitely revealed, that is, what he considers necessary in order for a person to prepare for the possibility of accepting and assimilating salvation, that is, reuniting the lost connection with God. The connection was lost by the disobedience of one commandment; the condition for the restoration of communication is the readiness to obey the whole set of commandments.

“I want to give you salvation,” God says to a person, “do you accept this gift? know, following your will in life, inevitably sinful, you will not be able to accept this gift. The commandment of the old law is the index of sin; she cannot help to be saved; it can only show how to live like God and like a man; how to do the will of God; where are the common paths of human predetermination.

The saving will of God regarding man was definitely and intensely revealed in the New Testament, because by the very grace of God “saving all man” (), salvation was revealed not in theory or in possibility, but in deed. From this moment, although the will of God in relation to man does not fundamentally change - be saved in obedience, faith and love, but the center of gravity of the moral order is transferred from one's own efforts to acting grace. A person has to look carefully where grace walks. And thus, the will of God, which according to the commandments is common to all people, is individually acquired (or, at least, sought) by each individual person, according to his personal characteristics, according to the circumstances of time and place.

Therefore, the will of God with regard to a particular person is that he should recognize the will of God. In essence, in relation to Himself, he wants a person to bow to Him; but not because God needs it, Who does not need anything, but because man himself needs it.

It seems to be quite natural and simple, but instead of this normal simplicity, abnormal complexity is more common. And therefore, the will of God is not fulfilled, and instead of worshiping God, a person worships a creature, or an illusion on the topic of God, or simply does not understand the principle of worship at all, replacing it with the godless principle of democratic egalitarianism (i.e., God is treated by a familiar).

The will of God about a person in his relations with other people (with “neighbors”) is that, having brotherly tenderness, benevolence and pure justice towards them, a person does not want anything from them for himself, and on the contrary, he would have a constant readiness to give everything you need to surrender. And it is so difficult, because the historical diverse sinful practice has worked out in this regard, in general, the opposite position.

God's will for man in his relation to the world is that, on the one hand, glorifying the Creator for the perfection of His creations, at the same time, he would not “cling” to them too biasedly, but would not see them as a simple source of satisfaction. their carnal-spiritual lusts (consumerism).

Finally, the will of God about man in his relation to himself consists, first of all, in the need to strive for all kinds of inner purity, because the history of sin has led him, on the contrary, to all kinds of impurity - from pride to the unlawful claims of the flesh.

One of the most essential functions of the Providence of God for people is to lead a person through living faith in the Savior to blessed eternity, to indicate the paths of life here on earth: “I have come into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in Me should not remain in darkness. (). This enlightenment of Christ is most understandably and obviously realized by Him through the gospel of the truth, as well as through the embodiment of those moral commandments, which, according to the Word of God, entails blessedness.

Bliss consists in what is first sought (“hungers and thirsts”), and then the truth of God is fulfilled. Divine Providence accomplishes its saving mission in the purified and restored human nature.

The saving action of the Providence of God is performed positively on those people who live "about every word that comes from the mouth of God" (). Therefore, providentially, “blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it” (). The providence of God promises them everything that they ask in prayer with faith and lets them know the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven ().; in short, he rewards in every possible way the performers of God's righteousness.

Many of the most tender, almost lyrical words are found by the Savior to show the guardianship of God's Providence over man “Are not two small birds sold for a copper coin, and not one of them will fall to the ground without the will of your Father. You have a hair on your head and everything is numbered ... Do not be afraid ... "(). How remarkable in this regard are the parables of the barren fig tree, which the gardener asks to leave for the third year (), about the rich man and Lazarus (), about the prodigal son (), the story of the paralyzed (Jo.5,1-16).

From the position of moral active awareness of life, the most significant functions of Divine Providence, guiding the human person to salvation, because this reveals the mechanism of synergetic - joint Providential-Divine and free-human doing, which makes salvation. The main directions of action of the Providence Mechanism are as follows.

Firstly, help in mastering the saving commandment and, in general, everything that relates to spiritual, heavenly life. There are many ways and concrete possibilities in this respect, and they are as diverse as the life and world of human individuals. But, speaking schematically, there are two main perspectives here: the first is to help to see all the ugliness of animal, godless life; the second, on the contrary, is to help see the joy, light and warmth of the heavenly life bestowed by Christ. The action of Providence in this respect consists in opening the moral eyes of the mind and heart in a person, that is, in order for genuine moral values ​​to take their place.

Secondly, helping a person in the very fulfillment of the commandments, in building a truly Christian system in his soul, in fulfilling the will of God, in fighting sin and doing virtues. Of course, this help is accepted by a person only when he has already accepted and assimilated the commandments and understands the need to seek the will of God. Providence offers man paths on which the unobtrusive and pure will of God is revealed. Providence makes it possible to feel that the very fulfillment of the Divine will is fraught with blissful experiences; finally, the volitional efforts of a person to do good are strengthened providentially, which in themselves are extremely insignificant without this help.

As in the matter of assimilation, so in the fulfillment of the commandments, the Providence of God acts not only internally, but also externally; and here Providence has two main obvious possibilities. The first is to build the circumstances of life in such a way that they "push" a person to the right concepts and decisions. Especially in terms of moral consequences, circumstances that are emotionally colored in joyful or mournful tones are effective. The second providential possibility of moral action consists in the clash of human vectors, attitudes and wills. And in this regard, Providence, the greatest playwright and director, brings people together in such a way that the moral content of their lives is revealed with particular persuasiveness and creativity.

The Content of the Moral Life and Providence

It cannot be otherwise, firstly, because Providence, by its nature, is the Creator, and, secondly, because the commandment is creative by its nature. Life itself is created, supported and protected by Providence: this is its essence. And Providence fulfills this task also because a person is involved in providential work, realizing the moral paths of his life, fulfilling the will of God, established primarily in the commandments. First of all, the main commandment is creative in its essence - the dual commandment of love - to God and to people. “Love creates,” as St. the apostle Paul one of the main functions of this virtue, as opposed to an autonomous, puffed up self-satisfied mind. () and defines the same understanding in the opposite way: “love does not act outrageously” (), i.e. is carried out by a certain rank, order, mode, way of being.

This is very understandable: because the essence of love is the union of two or more personalities in the closest way. Connection is construction, the creation of unity. Consequently, this is also one of the essential meanings of all the commandments, because, according to the word of Jesus, they all flow into these two main ones, and the fulfillment of the commandments builds both inner peace and peace between people. Thus, the whole moral life is by its nature not disorderly, but creative, constructive, and the main designer of all these structures is the Providence of God.

The greatest providential work of God's love is the cross of Christ: by the creative power of the Cross, he saves the world. The God-Man preparing for the Cross, wishing to see in his followers something similar to Himself, not only calls them, but offers them as the main, and perhaps the only condition for this following – self-denial up to the cross. (“If anyone wants to follow Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” -).

The cross is the pinnacle of the moral life of both the God-man and any person; Through the cross of love, Providence unites all people together and with Christ into the spiritual and moral unity of the Church. The human cross, according to the church concept, is the voluntary bearing of internal and external sorrows sent by the saving Providence. As sent, it is a providential phenomenon, as received freely and personally, it is a moral phenomenon. The moral result of the cross of Christ is the victory over the kingdom of evil and death, and the acceptance of one's own cross in accordance with this Cross is a personal victory over the same kingdom in oneself. And this is the general victory of Christ and any particular moral victory of the human person is a manifestation of the glory of God, for it is done to the glory of God.

Providence protects, keeps a person from death (saves), but on the condition that a person wants to be saved and preserved, and does not destroy what Providence creates. The effort to fulfill the commandment just testifies to this creative acceptance of salvation. In other words, a commandment accepted by a person is a sign of agreement with the Providence of God. And then the protection of creation as the doing of God's Providence has a reason to be carried out with a more perfect fullness, as He Himself testifies: “Do not worry about your soul, what you eat and what to drink, and not about your body, what to wear.

Is not the soul greater than food and the body than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into a barn; and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you much better than them? And who among you, taking care, can add even one cubit to his stature? And what do you care about clothes? Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither work nor spin, but I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory did not dress like any of them; But if the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow will be thrown into the oven, so clothes, how much more than you, you of little faith! So don't worry and don't say, "What shall we eat?" or "what to drink?" or “what to wear?” because the Gentiles are looking for all this, and because your Heavenly Father knows that you need all this. Seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all this will be added to you ”(). More than anywhere else, the Lord establishes here an organic connection between the action of Providence and the moral world of the individual: the Lord does not leave His providential care for a person, but only when the person himself provides Him with the opportunity for such care, paying significant spiritual and moral attention to the heavenly world. .

In the practice of life, this, of course, does not mean that the one who seeks the Kingdom of Heaven and listens to its truth should completely abandon all cares, leave all earthly activities and only pray, not earning his bread in the sweat of his face. This first commandment to Adam, being expelled from paradise, has become for every person both a symbol of exile, and a moral intention, and a constant reality (unless he uses someone else's sweat for his bread).

True, in the history of Christianity, although rarely, there were situations of its non-fulfillment, when the hearers of a more spiritual commandment “seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all this (daily bread) will be added to you” - they literally left all material cares in the hope to the fulfillment of God's promises, and their faith was not put to shame: sometimes their daily bread appeared before them, as a result of someone else's labor, and sometimes as a result of a direct miracle of God.

Nevertheless, the main moral meaning of this commandment is not so much in its literal understanding, but in the abandonment of heartfelt concerns about material objects. In the conditions of humanity mired in the flesh, when all the desires of the hearts were applied almost exclusively to the material world, the commandment to primarily trust Providence has a moral and revolutionary character. And it remained forever the same revolutionary-outrageous in relation to the weak human nature. And even many quite serious and conscious Christians, understanding and accepting it theoretically, see in it such a maximalistically ideal height that they do not even try to assimilate it in the specific context of their lives. Meanwhile, the providential promise is so simple, understandable, and spiritually logical: Strive for more, and then along with it you will acquire less. Otherwise, as experience shows, until the end of your life, insatiable torsion like a squirrel in a wheel - in the circle of perishable earthly acquisitions can await you.

Providence and Grace

The moral commandment of the primary search for spiritual gifts is especially relevant in the conditions of the operation of the Gospel law of grace, because the assimilation of this commandment means trust in Providence, i.e. a sign of living faith. When he offers this commandment to a new person, he expresses great trust and respect for him. He seems to be saying: “It was impossible before; but now, when you are given new grace-filled powers, I believe that you are able to agree with this commandment of Mine, which is extremely important for you; I trust your wisdom, responsibility and freedom; make up your mind - and My Providence will not leave you.

But when a person blessed with the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ and the power of the sacraments, in false humility, believes that he is too powerless to agree to such a high commandment, he responds to Christ’s trust with his distrust of Providence, and therefore is deprived of his patronage, even in earthly affairs, and is forced to spend almost all his energy on earthly things (usually with insignificant results). Thus, he shows indifference to the grace bestowed by God.

Meanwhile, Divine grace both creates and is itself the essence of the moral atmosphere of the saving existence of man. If you do not look for grace-filled gifts from Christ the Savior, the commandments of the new moral law remain, at best, monuments to lofty dreamy ideals and belles-lettres, which have a very distant relation to concrete moral reality, for they turn out to be unfulfillable. But, in fact, the omnipotent action of God accomplishes what a person cannot do by himself. The whole point of the new moral system is the assimilation of grace. Therefore, the fulfillment of the commandments is important not in itself, but as an indicator of the assimilation of the grace-filled Christ energy.

This does not mean that from an objective point of view it is morally indifferent, for example, to condemn or not to condemn one's neighbor. But this means that as far as grace is assimilated, condemnation ceases, as it were automatically. Because Divine Grace itself is disgusting as something alien to it.

The very task of Divine grace is to create an atmosphere of holiness and permeate with the intentions of holiness everything that is not absolutely captivated by sin, and thereby create the prerequisites for a moral evangelical life.

The space of the Church, which repels sin, is co-natural with the action of grace. In this regard, the most significant place in the life of a person in the Church is occupied by the sacraments, because the grace of God's Providence acting in them directly directs to building the evangelical order of life, which is realized in the fulfillment of the will of God. However, the whole grace-ritual life of the Church is directed, in essence, to the upbringing and education of a person who sharply differs in his moral principles and achievements from all those who do not accept Christ. In addition, the communal catholic structure of the life of the Church frees those included in it from the usual sinful individualism; thus the Providence of God, through grace, carries out its moral work in the Church.

But besides this, when the grace of God in a mysterious, incomprehensible way acts on a person’s personality, this action always has, according to the Providence of God, unique moral positive consequences - first of all, insofar as these actions of grace are personally experienced. Objectively sent grace is personally experienced as bliss, that is, as a feeling of perfect joy, and for this reason alone, such an experience turns out to be moral. But it also evokes other accompanying experiences (for example, sadness about one’s sins), as well as the desire for specific moral actions, for the active fulfillment of the commandments and in general the will of God, because by its very nature the experience of grace is the experience of Divine love, on that the soul responds with its reciprocal love, which seeks its embodiment in action.

The action of Providence in this regard is, firstly, to keep the soul in a state of readiness to receive grace at the right moment, and secondly, to open before the soul the possibilities of the active realization of good.

The more organic, intense work of the soul, and the higher the feats of this intense moral work, the more clear it is for it itself that this is carried out by grace. It would be too obviously absurd in such cases to attribute both the doing and its results to oneself. And therefore, the morally accompanying feeling of this process is not self-satisfied self-conceit, natural in autonomous doing, but increasing repentance. And a great but quiet gratitude. This, by the way, distinguishes the moral-ascetic approach adopted and experienced by a person of Orthodox consciousness from any non-Orthodox, and even more so, non-Christian, and even more so non-religious. The Eastern Holy Fathers, unlike the Western ones, are often expressed in the sense that it is much more important to see the multitude of one's sins than the multitude of angels (in general, the phenomena of the heavenly world). In this sober moral consciousness, they believe the surest sign of the saving action of grace, and at the same time - the beginning of the healing of the soul.

The grace of God, once in the sacraments of holy baptism and chrismation, entered the heart of a person and changed him, and then, many times renewing its presence in other sacraments, primarily in repentance and communion, according to the providence of God, always strives to be fruitful. When it is clear that it is still unfruitful and inactive in the reality of human destiny, this always means only one thing: the human heart turned out to be an inaccessible fortress for the grace of God and did not accept it.

They do not accept grace at all and are inaccessible to it, first of all, hearts that consciously reject the Divine world and all its actions. In such cases, the main direction of the efforts of Providence is to open such hearts for heavenly impressions, and our time knows many cases of opening hearts.

Secondly, they do not accept grace and hearts completely captivated by sin are closed to it, and then Providence, first of all, seeks to reveal to the soul all the destructiveness and poverty of its captive existence, so that grace-filled repentant lamentation melts the mortal bonds of sin.

Finally, thirdly, they do not accept the grace of God in the hearts of people who arrogantly experience the autonomy of their realization in various spheres, including the sphere of the moral world. The self-sufficiency of these proud people, striving for their own good deeds, makes the actions of grace superfluous, and here the actions of Providence come down mainly to ensuring that a person sees and experiences the emptiness and ugliness of his metaphysical and moral pride.

Human freedom and its perversions

It may seem strange how the mighty Providence of God, the merciful grace of God, the great and Creator cannot cope with the weak created human nature. But God does not change Himself. God respects His own creative miracle - man, His image, which has the opportunity to be realized in likeness. To "cope" with a man would mean to deprive him of this great dignity, and thereby to re-create a different being, incapable of freedom and love. Only a morally free being - a person is capable of great knowledge, experience and realization of love, but by virtue of the same gift, only he is capable of sin.

The absolute freedom of God, which was realized in a visible way for creation in the highest free creativity - the creation of creations, is also realized as a gift in the creativity of the human person, when it is positively revealed in cooperation with God. Or in negative "creativity" manifested in opposition to the Creator.

The essence of freedom itself is independence from nothing and no one. Since there is love, and goodness, and truth, and the source of love, and truth, and goodness in the world, provocative questions about the possibility of realizing the freedom of Divine creativity against goodness, love, and truth are meaningless, because this would mean God's dependence on something except His Divine and absolute nature.

The image of God - a person becomes the more similar to his Prototype God, the more his choice potentially leans towards the pure realization of all his god-like properties; then man does not change his God-created nature, and his freedom is truly independent of anything else. In other words, the more a person strives, avoiding self-will, to fulfill the will of God, the more independent and free he is.

The very understanding of the will, with its apparent obviousness, needs an accurate moral assessment of its meanings. The will reveals the essence of freedom.

It is known how often in ordinary verbal practice the substitution of meanings, and hence the moral assessments of the concepts of "will" and "freedom", so that they are often used interchangeably. The concept of “will” is sometimes used even in theological literature, often only in a morally negative sense: self-will, that is, the self-direction of volitional efforts, which is not corrected either in its attitudes or in reality by interacting, or even opposing other human wills, and even by the will of God.

The most accurate understanding of the will includes a kind of free, tense directed determination, intention, if we are talking about one object, or a dynamic, constantly acting, organic bundle of such determinations, if we are talking about the life of the individual as a whole. Thus, will, by definition, is a phenomenon and concept rather psychological than moral. It acquires moral meanings depending on the content, direction and coordination with other wills, primarily with the will of God.

Human freedom in the ordinary empirical course of life is realized as the will to some internal or external independent action. And in this sense, the will to inaction, or freedom of inaction, is nothing more than a special case of freedom of action. The choice, carried out as an action of free will, is expressed not only in the determination to carry out one of two or more possibilities of the content of the action, but also in the degree (intensity) of the action, motives for action, solutions, etc. All this is inevitably permeated with moral experiences, which, first of all, are determined by the objects of dependence of the will. Being in bondage in this sense is always free, even being in bondage. And no matter how unnatural it seems for a normal person to be in slavery to the will of the devil, who destroys his soul precisely through this slavery, this is such a constant, although rarely recognized in this capacity, that people work for the devil much more often than for God.

It is with this that the will to evil, so well known both at the everyday and at the philosophical level, is connected. “The good that I want, I do not do, but the evil that I do not want, I do ... So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me ... I am a poor man! Who will deliver me from this body of death? With such power of holy sorrow, no one else, either before or after the Apostle Paul, expressed the mystical attraction of human nature to evil.

Since the nineteenth century, many researchers have especially noted the intensification of this irrational craving for evil, the destructive power of which leads to senseless, "unprofitable" actions for the individual - up to and including suicide. Especially noted in the twentieth century, mainly in the second half, the exponential growth of the so-called "unmotivated" crimes. In this regard, nothing explains, at best describes, the theory of mental illness. Understanding that the will to evil is connected with slavery reveals the essence of the matter, but not the mechanism of this action.

Likewise, freedom of inaction, which is revealed as one of the types of reaction to events, cannot in itself be described in moral terms, because everything depends on the moral content of the situation. On the contrary, always a morally negative character has a fundamental lack of will, i.e. inability of a person to volitional efforts, especially in situations requiring critical resolution. But even lack of will, as little dependent on conscious attitudes, is not so obviously immoral as the main sinful defeat of the human will, called self-will.

The essence of self-will consists in experiencing the exceptional value of one's own decisions and the importance of efforts towards the implementation of these decisions. This state is not assessed as sinful by people of non-religious consciousness, simply because in the conditions of such consciousness the concept of "God's will" is not accepted as having a real content, and other human values ​​\u200b\u200bcan be partly considered when making their own decisions, i.e. they, as it were, are not interfere with principled self-will. Thus, a person lives in his own way, and this is the only value for him, but if he is a “decent” person, he can take into account other people's desires. In the conditions of atheism, self-will can be understood as a distortion of freedom only with an extremely daring disregard for other personalities, and especially when self-will has an exotic direction (for example, robbery).

For the Christian consciousness, self-will is, of course, always a sinful state, especially when it manifests itself in a Christian, because freedom is a gift from God to the image of God. This gift is not distorted only when freedom is directed towards God, i.e., there is an attitude towards the fulfillment of God's will.

In distorted understandings, freedom is completely identified with one's will, and it is not even theoretically conceivable in any other way.

In the holy ascetic fathers, the often used word "self" means an individual experience of the absolute self-worth of one's personality. In the empirical realization of life, the self is greater and, above all, manifests itself precisely as willfulness. In general, self-will is one of the constant and most general categories of human life and is manifested almost always and in everyone, except for those individuals who have as their task the conscious adherence to the will of God. The concreteness of manifestations of willfulness is so infinite that it defies even a rough classification, because wherever there is a word “I want”, the ways of self-will are revealed.

The “work” of Christ and human cooperation

Only one - a perfect Man showed in His life a quality that is the opposite of self-will - obedience, "having obeyed even to death, the death of the cross" (). The work of Christ, let's say better in the usual gospel words, the work of Christ is always understood in the fullness of moral meanings.

Cooperation with Christ is revealed in two main directions.

The work of Christ is the work of saving people. This means that the essence of cooperation is participation in this saving work. The saving work of Christ extends to all people. Consequently, human collaboration can also extend to the entire human world. But the whole human world is divided for each person into two quantitatively unequal parts: “I” and “everyone else”. And no matter how close some people from this second category (for example, spouses or children) may be to any human "I", the boundaries of personality can never be crossed, except perhaps in the imagination or in some extreme disorder of the soul.

Consequently, co-working with Christ can go in two directions: co-working with Christ in the salvation of my own “I” and co-working in the salvation of other people. At the same time, “all other people” are also divided into two unequal parts. The first includes those who are at least somewhat close to "I" in the very reality of life, including almost casual acquaintances, and the second again - "everyone else."

Collaboration with Christ in the salvation of one's own personality includes in its entirety all questions of spiritual and moral life.

The work of Christ for the salvation of each individual human person includes both general processes and unique processes related to each of this person.

The general includes everything that includes the saving feat of Christ. At first glance, it may seem that in this respect no co-operation with Christ is fundamentally impossible: for example, even if the free crucifixion of Christ is repeated, there will be no direct participation in His actual feat. This is not how Christian theology treats this issue, starting with the Apostle Paul, who repeatedly speaks of co-crucifixion with Christ, arguing that all genuine Christians crucify “the flesh with passions and lusts” (). This constitutes the self-sacrificing feat of a Christian's life, if it is accomplished in the name of the greatest treasure in the world - the person of the God-man Jesus Christ, for the sake of fulfilling the truth of Christ, destroying one's own individuality, perishing by sin and creating a new personality in Christ. Already only the consciousness of this fact and the assimilation of this consciousness in the soul, mind and heart constitutes the beginning of the re-creation of one's own personality, i.e., precisely co-working with Christ.

It is precisely this meaning that personal participation in the sacraments of the Church has, unless it is external participation. is the Body of Christ, and her mysterious life is a continuation of the work of Christ. And he who participates in this mysterious life, in the life of the sacraments, consciously experiencing this life, enters into cooperation. It is in this sense that the Apostle Paul says that those who partake of the death of Christ confess (1 Cor.!!.22). Christ the Savior always saves, but he never saves automatically, apart from the consent and will of the one being saved. The participation of his consent and will, at the same time passive (for he is the object of salvation) and active (for he performs certain actions for this, unless it is a question of a baby), is a salvific co-working with Christ.

Moral work, as the fulfillment of Christian commandments, can and should be assessed in terms of co-working with Christ, because the very purpose of moral work is union with Christ, so that He Himself, by His Flesh and Blood, becomes the main moral worker in those who partake, so that “impossible for a person” becomes "possible for God."

A person, engaging in this moral activity, having decided on the "impossible", becomes thereby a co-worker with Christ.

This moral activity includes both general motives, for the commandment is one for all, and its fulfillment has general rules and methods of application; - and individual, because, since each person is unique, their personal decisions and implementations in terms of fulfilling the commandments remain unlike any other. It is this understanding that includes the symbolic rite of anointing with oil just before baptism. Just as a wild olive tree, grafted onto a noble one, begins to bear noble and good fruits, so after being “grafted” into the “nobility” of Christ through baptism, a person begins to bear the fruits of Divine-human cooperation. Thus, good deeds, both as a process and as a result, testify to the joint doing of Christ and any person, moreover, on the part of a person, this doing can never be unconscious.

The same character has co-working, aimed at all others. In this respect, the doing of a person, relating to strangers or to all of humanity, practically has the character of only a prayerful experience, because it is impossible to imagine any other doing directed at everyone. It is so pitiful for the Christian soul to see the created world upset and disharmonious due to sin, especially the world of fallen humanity, that it prays for everyone in tears about this fall, begging God for salvation. Such a blissful experience, full of sorrow, compassion, mercy, love, was experienced by many saints. This can be judged from the words of the Apostle Paul, the Monk Isaac the Syrian (eighth century) and our contemporary Russian monk, the Monk Silouan of Athos.

It is much more understandable and possible to cooperate with God in the salvation of people connected with any “I” by ties of kinship or any other closeness - friendship, neighborhood, external cooperation, and so on. The challenge here is to be willing and become an instrument of God in the work of saving others.

This is possible under two simultaneously operating conditions. Firstly, if there are gifts from God that make such cooperation possible: the gift of compassion and sorrow, the gift of attentiveness to the soul of another person, the gift of kindness and diligence in doing good, the gift of selfless service, the gift of purity and honesty, the gift of a wise word. Secondly, when the soul burns with the desire to be an instrument of God, to enter into the work of co-working with Christ (it is true, in this case one must beware of destructive vanity).

This salvific co-working is carried out most organically in the family, where it is directly commanded. Thus, parents should be co-workers with Christ in the Christian upbringing of children. In certain occupations, saving co-operation with Christ is also indispensable. Leaving aside the priesthood and, in general, about all types of church service, the medical professions make for a Christian an orientation towards co-working is inevitable. When there is such an attitude in the soul of a Christian, any occasion is sufficient for it to come into action. This becomes especially important in epochs like ours, when the concept of a truly objective religion becomes the most vague, and then almost every conscious and educated Christian is required to take upon himself the work of the apostles, i.e. teaching the ignorant in faith - the truth of God.

Apostleship thus turns out to be a specific and, perhaps, the most obvious type of co-working with Christ. This is one of the essential functions of the Church in a fallen world: the testimony of knowledge about the Kingdom of God and its truth. Therefore, for educated Christians, one of the serious moral tasks is the study of Christian dogma and moral teaching in order to teach others if necessary.

The consciously accepted task of co-working with Christ is an expression of striving to acquire the spirit of true sonship. It is filial love and filial attitude, on the one hand, that, by its nature, seeks the possibilities of doing one thing together with the Father and rejoices when such possibilities are realized; on the other hand, a filial attitude towards the Father truly sees brothers perishing around him, and fraternal pity compels him to cooperate with the Father in His loving paternal deeds. Even when a person does not dare to say to himself, out of humility, that he is ready for co-working with his Christ, then in any case, he expresses his readiness to work for Him, especially when he sees and feels how much time and energy has been vainly given to other works (“ vouchsafe me, O Lord, now to love Thee, as though sometimes loving that same sin; and again to work for Thee without laziness, as if I had previously worked for the flattering Satan "- morning 8th). Every deed in the name of God or work for the Lord is carried out as the fulfillment of the will of God.

Seeking the Will of God

Before you perform, you need to know what you are performing, otherwise it may turn out that you are not performing exactly what you need, or even not at all what you need. Much of what a person needs to do according to the will of God is by the will of God and openly. But not all. Otherwise, the apostle Paul would not have talked about the need to know “the will of God - good, acceptable and perfect” (). When something is already known by itself, there is no need to seek and know. You are only looking for something that is not quite known where it is. Thus, the first in the series of what must be done according to the will of God is the very search for the will of God. When searching for the will of God, in order for it to be accurate, certain spiritual rules must be observed. This is so significant that if these rules are not accepted a priori, most likely, the will of God will not only not be found, but even sought.

First of all, it is necessary to realize that “one’s own will”, due to the fall of human nature, is always a sinful will, and not only cannot one orient oneself on it, but on the contrary, constant work is needed to reject it. It is clear that the rejection of the sinful will is not at all the same thing as weak will or lack of will, on the contrary, it is the direction of one's own volitional efforts to seek and fulfill the will of God. The rejection of one's own will will be carried out the more successfully, the more obvious its unrighteousness. On the other hand, the more surely the unquestionably objective, and therefore objectively valuable, truth of the will of God will be known. Careful consideration of the unkind, and therefore unpleasant, results of following one's fallen will greatly contributes to its successful rejection.

A very important condition for a successful search for the will of God is the assimilation of the great principle remarkably accurately expressed by the Apostle Paul: “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (). Conforming to this age means accepting one's own concepts, life and moral values, directions of volitional efforts, emotional coloring, etc., looking closely and trying to establish correspondence with how the average statistical public opinion evaluates and accepts all these concepts of people who do not understand and do not accept religious value. world.

The transformation of the renewed mind, strictly speaking, means the result of perfect repentance. A transformed mind is a mind that has begun to live according to the laws of spiritual perceptions, and not of the fallen rationalistic consciousness. And it is impossible for the mind to be both renewed and transformed at the same time, and at the same time act "according to the elements of this age." Because these are two types of consciousness fundamentally opposed to one another, which is emphasized in the opposition of the Apostle Paul. And when in the teaching and practice of the life of some types of sects one notices a desire to combine these incompatibilities, this means, at a minimum, an unwillingness to understand the condition for a normal search for the will of God. In general, a mind that is not projected onto transfigured heavenly landmarks is incapable of searching for the will of God. Even the most pure and noble manifestations of “this age” are permeated with sin, and therefore, when searching for the will of God, it is impossible to focus on this world; the benchmark is thin, mistakes are inevitable.

An indispensable condition that precedes the search for the will of God is the attitude to the consideration of human existence, in particular one's own existence, from the point of view of moral good (and not vulgar human earthly happiness) and eternal destination (and not transient goals and benefits). With such an attitude, readiness for death for the sake of Christ and His truth is experienced internally as more valuable and dear than life as a spontaneous chain of carnal and spiritual joys and consolations; or even meaningful by some goal that is recognized as noble: for example, engaging in art or scientific creativity. Therefore, for example, fasting time is felt more joyfully than the usual course of the year.

The will of God is always moral, but not always understandable. The will of God in the entire multitude of human existences is a sea of ​​moral meanings and values, in which a person who is looking for his own, but at the same time, objectively true path of life, must navigate. The entire Christian doctrine as a whole is a system of lighthouses in this sea, where, in fact, the meanings and values ​​themselves do not change, but only the conditions of human existence and individual experiences change, which need to be illuminated by the light of these lighthouses, then life will go in the wake of the will of God, which in itself is quite stable and constant. Therefore, we can say that Christian morality is always conservative, which allows those who wish to find stable paths (the will of God) in an unstable changing world.

It is precisely this instability, as well as the uniqueness of human personalities and moral situations that require various solutions, sometimes directly opposite, that all create a false impression of the relativity of the Christian moral world.

The search for the will of God is first and foremost required in situations of moral choice. In these situations, the will of God, showing a person the right path, can never be both "yes" and "no". In situations of moral choice, alternativeness is always imaginary; it is a double-edged sword, but only one end always rests on the commandment. Only in a person who is not strengthened by faith and does not know or does not seek the true ways of truth can there be both “yes” and “no” at the same time.

Of course, moral situations are not always simple. When choosing a moral decision, there can often be a severe struggle of motives, each of which may seem positively moral. Therefore, the last preliminary condition for the search for the will of God is the unfeigned attitude towards this search. Here we are not talking about involuntary self-deceptions from inexperience and incorrectly applied methods, or about other reasons that cause illegitimate errors in the search for the will of God. Here we are talking about situations in which mistakes are natural and inevitable - due to the unwillingness to seek the will of God.

These are, first of all, situations, so to speak, of involuntary hypocrisy, when it seems that the will of God is desirable, but basically only as long as it coincides with one's own desires and emotions. Secondly, these are situations when the will of God is not sought, because a person simply does not know what this search is.

When searching for the will of God, two groups of reference points are used, internal and external. Internal guidelines include, first of all, one's own intuition and reasoning. External reference points include everything that relates to the experience of the Church: tradition, the lives of the saints, the works of the holy fathers, describing ascetic experience, spiritual guidance (confessors, monasticism); external landmarks also include various external circumstances of life, including unique ones (signs, miracles). The method of orientation in the moral life with the help of prayer seems to be extremely important.

But still, the main, most universal, constant and unmistakable indicators of the will of God are the commandments; of course, first of all, the gospel commandments and the commandments of the decalogue. In them, the will of God is contained by definition, since He Himself says in them and through them: “do”, thereby establishing the most general rules for the embodiment of the will of God in human life.

Therefore, those who unhypocritically desire to live according to the will of God need to carefully study all the moral prescriptions, instructions and tips, mainly the gospel ones; to study both in their direct content and in the desire to relate the entire moral system commanded by the word of God to one's life. Taking into account that there are many dozens of such moral instructions in the Gospel, the mere study of them can take a considerable period of life. This includes the moral meaning of individual parables (about talents, about the unrighteous lender, and many others) and individual gospel episodes (the harlot who smeared Jesus' feet with oil, the Apostle Peter's walking on the water, and many others). The entire commandment-moral structure of the Gospel represents a constant living force field of the will of God; who lives in this field has very many preconditions for living quite unmistakably.

Also, by definition, the will of God is contained in the life of the Church, which is called Sacred Tradition. Therefore, if someone does not have the opportunity to read a lot and thoroughly study the Word of God in its moral content, even in the Gospel, but constantly purposefully and intensively lives the life of the Church, one can hope that he walks in the circles of God's will. For since there is the Body of Christ, the will of God abides in it and acts both in a mystical-mysterious, invisible and incomprehensible way for carnal and flat rationalistic reasoning, and in understandable visible forms.

First of all, all worship is permeated with jets and currents of morality, and, consequently, of the Divine will. Thus, the will of God to mystical thanksgiving is expressed with particular force in the Divine Liturgy (Eucharist); God's will for human repentance and humility is especially revealed in the services of the Lenten cycle (Lenten Triodion).

Extremely strong and lively examples of the search for and fulfillment of the will of God are contained in hagiographic material: the lives of the saints, prologues, patericons. By constantly reading such literature and striving to find patterns for one's life there, a person enters that system of holiness, which, first of all, contains the will of God.

All this contains the experience of moral life, which is the same for everyone, and therefore does not require a fundamentally individual search, but rather is accepted for “gathering” objectively oriented moral knowledge. Such knowledge is very applicable in standard moral situations, but not enough for unique situations.

Individually oriented experience is acquired through special personal searches for the right decisions, primarily through persons who have absorbed the fullness of church experience, mainly through confessors. An experienced confessor, priest, monk or simply a person who has become accustomed to spiritual experience will give advice to the seeker of the will of God, not only not contradicting the experience of the Church, but also especially suitable for the circumstances, by the time, finally, to the personality of the tester, to the peculiarities of his psychology, his reasoning, to to his abilities and aspirations, to his moral and spiritual state.

Moreover, a seeker of God's will can enter into a relationship of obedience to his confessor, which is especially useful when the confessor reveals God's will to him quite accurately.

But in this respect, both the seeker of God's will and the adviser should be very careful. Firstly, the advice itself may not always turn out to be accurate, and then more or less serious moral and all sorts of other mistakes can be made in life. These mistakes are all the more serious and constant, the less suitable the “adviser” is for such a “role” that he has taken on, and then it will be according to the gospel word: “if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit” ().

Secondly, mistakes are not uncommon, consisting in the fact that an irresponsible and weak-willed person, instead of seeking the will of God, is looking for a person on whom he can “blame” his life responsibility; at the same time, he can, having lost one type of slavery, enter into another. “Do not be slaves of men,” says the Word of God ().

Finally, thirdly. Sometimes even worse happens: an adviser, especially if he is also a confessor, becomes an idol in the experience of the seeker; this idol involuntarily stands between a person and God and replaces God for him, and sometimes both of them - both the idol and the idol-maker do not notice the disaster that has happened. Especially frequent and dangerous such idols are in females. It takes a very great sobriety and soundness of reasoning and spiritual experience in general to avoid such a danger.

In general, reasoning is always required in the search for the will of God. Despite the fact that the human mind in the fall is distorted and absolutely impossible to focus on it: it will deceive and let you down; - but it is also impossible to do without it when using any external guide in the search for the will of God. This is especially required when evaluating the circumstances created by Providence so that in them the will of God is revealed to the seeker not by force, but in an accessible way.

Almost always, when searching for the will of God, especially in rather difficult situations, it is necessary to combine external and internal guidelines. Intuition, more or less spiritually purified, also belongs to the internal methods of orientation.

In non-religious experience, intuition and desire are almost always the only selection criteria. Usually, they mean even more than the course of external circumstances, which only to some extent corrects the choice. When searching for the will of God, a Christian realizes that the intuition distorted by the fall, as well as the distorted mind, cannot offer absolutely accurate solutions; at times, the interpretations of reason and intuition may turn out to be directly opposite to the will of God, but no one ever refuses intuitive “probes”, and indeed cannot. Even greater errors in rationalistic and intuitive interpretations can occur when the events being interpreted are in the nature of signs and wonders. This is especially dangerous when the soul is prone to mystical and magical experiences and is ready to see miracles in a completely trivial "layout" of events. The greatest danger here is that a person seeks to adjust the meaning of events to his feelings and desires.

This also happens when prayer is used as an instrument for seeking the will of God. Recognizing the will of God through prayer in general is not an easy task and requires a fine skill. One of the most difficult tasks in the search for the will of God is to overcome oneself already at this stage, because the will of God often offers solutions that seem bitter to the beginning "seeker" or even simply impossible.

But the ultimate meaning of this seeking and doing itself is not in overcoming for the sake of overcoming, but, on the contrary, in conforming one's will with the will of God. Because otherwise, only the overcoming of oneself and one's sinful will, by all means, will lead to a slavish morality and a slavish attitude towards God, which is so characteristic of the Old Testament time and state.

Christian ideals are different. The will of God is a vast field of moral content. Those who are guided by Christian ideals, first of all, are looking for ways not of volitional fulfillment of external and other people's instructions, but of conforming their will, which was previously sinful and impure, with the will of God, holy and pure. This is the moral meaning of the sacrament of baptism and all other sacraments: the rebirth and transformation of the whole person, including his will. For this, the will of God, objectively “good, pleasing and perfect,” must become just such and subjectively for a person, otherwise he will also seek it slavishly, and when he finds it, he will only try to fulfill it outwardly, and not conform to his will. Thus, he will not be able to assimilate it, that is, make it his own.

“Good, acceptable and perfect” means that a person says to himself: what I used to strive for was much worse for me than what God offers; this often led to bad consequences and only seemed to me desirable and kind; having found what God offers, even if it is difficult at first, I accept it as, of course, the best, and therefore I refuse my decisions, as they are objectionable to me.

As long as there is no heart attitude to experience the goodness of the will of God, for me personally, interpretations of all possible indications in a sense desirable for myself are inevitable. For voluntaristic subjectivism, this is always an easy task. It is possible to interpret any combination of circumstances directly in the opposite sense, to see a sign where there is none; refer to a common occurrence as a miracle; not to see even a completely obvious clue after a prayer, and so on.

It is somewhat more difficult in such cases to turn to the experience of the Church; and even then it is always possible, for example, in false humility to say about oneself: “we, the people of the present time, are completely powerless in comparison with the saints and we can only be guided by their decisions conditionally.” And even in the advice of experienced people, one can hear what was not said at all, and what was said cannot be heard. In addition, such a remarkably subtle technique of telling, for example, a confessor about certain events, has already been developed, that it is possible to predict his reaction in advance. However, even with an honest desire to seek the will of God, the matter is not simple in a mystical sense, for here the important question of discerning spirits arises.

Distinguishing Spirits

The understanding of the need to discern spirits comes from apostolic times: “Beloved! believe not every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 Jo 4:1). The test of spirits is a test of complex variant solutions in the field of spiritual and moral; in an applied sense, this is a test of the correlation of decisions with the will of God. Such a test is extremely important because, according to ascetic knowledge, the angels of darkness have the habit and the ability to pretend to be angels of light, that is, to some extent even to transform into them. Evil is revealed to inexperienced people as an appearance of goodness, a lie, as an appearance of truth, ugliness, as an appearance of goodness and beauty. Starting as a deception, the substitution of one spirit for another, ends as self-deception. Self-deception begins with a mistake of sensation and experience, ends with a mistake of external and internal action, a mistake of life, sometimes lasting a lifetime.

Much has been written in patristic literature about such deceptions, substitutions, and illusions: about such seductions; it is usually written in tones of deep sorrow, which is understandable. The one who consciously accepts the spirit of lies and malice is worthy of deep lamentation. But, firstly, his choice usually corresponds to his own life material. He says: I choose commerce or fornication (especially since it can be described in more elegant terms) or anything else, but not God, because He prevents me from doing all this. At least not cheating here. In addition, with such an open confrontation, it is more likely to abandon any disgrace when it is not pretending to be something else.

But the one who wants to live in harmony with Christianity, and at the same time accepts the “spirit of flattery”, says to himself: I am engaged in commerce, but not for the sake of commerce, but to help others, and thereby fulfill the commandment of love; or: this is not fornication at all, but the highest and most beautiful degree of self-giving; I no longer live by myself, but live by another person.

Such pictures are the simplest representations of the indiscernibility of spirits. It is quite common to imagine the world of one's passions as a world of obedience to pure virtues.

Much more serious are those distortions of spiritual experience that lead to the indistinguishability of spirits in the proper spiritual sphere. The Apostle John continues: “Know the Spirit of God and the spirit of error (flattering) in this way: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ who has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not confess Jesus Christ who has come in the flesh is not from God, but it is the spirit of antichrist” (1 Jo 4:2-3). This difference between Divine truth and error only at first glance has an exclusively doctrinal character, which has nothing to do with the moral sphere. In fact, the confession of Jesus Christ, who came in the flesh, means the confession of all the fullness of the truth, which He, having incarnated, brought to earth, otherwise this confession is not of Christ, but of the theory (the spirit of flattery). It is this understanding that the Apostle John the Theologian reveals in other places of this epistle. “That we have come to know Him, we know by keeping His commandments. Whoever says: I have come to know God, but does not keep the commandments of Christ, he is a liar, and there is no truth in him ”(2, 3-4). “Children of God and children are known this way: everyone who does not do what is right is not from God, just like he who does not love his brother” (3,10). “He who has the Son of God has life; he who does not have the Son of God has no life” ( 5.12).

Thus, the discernment of spirits is verified by practice and leads to practical life according to an objective moral order. Discrimination and testing of spiritual and moral life is most necessary where the danger of misunderstanding is especially great. Here, first of all, we can talk about the relationship of a specific life practice with the repentant-humble order of the soul.

No activity is important in itself, but only in connection with that moral consciousness, with that structure of the soul, by which this activity is caused, by which it is accompanied, which it expresses and which is its result. The true spirit is always holy, pure, imperturbable, humble, truthful and free. The evil spirit is impure, and there is always something indefinitely vague in it, often dull and dreary and elegiac, poetic and soulful. There is never truth in it, even if everything is built on the material of truth and is terribly similar to the truth; he appeals to geniuses and high marks, in particular, to spiritual self-esteem. Loving to talk loftily about freedom, he rejects true freedom, practically replacing it with self-will; in general, he always bears dependence and sows it everywhere.

Of course, when realizing the need to distinguish between spirits, even theoretically we cannot talk about those people who do not recognize Jesus Christ, who came in the flesh; or even theoretically recognizing, do not correlate this recognition with their lives. Thus, rejecting the moral order brought by the Savior or even recognizing its loftiness, they never embark on the path of doing the will of God.

Discrimination of spirits is necessary and should be dealt with by those who actually strive to seek the will of God. In order for this problem not to become too theoretical, it is necessary to realize where the area of ​​distinguishing spirits is located in general, what is their life-giving breath in one case and pernicious in another - it is necessary to recognize spiritual contents.

First of all, it is necessary to recognize in oneself how unhypocritical the attitude towards a pure and strict search for the fulfillment of the will of God. In this regard, in the light of conscience, an honest check is necessary: ​​whether you are engaged in interpretations that you desire and please. Constant private penitential checks are needed for all signs of an evil spirit; when it comes to religious experiences, then first of all - do not you seek in these experiences, mainly, subtle pleasures and pleasures.

Secondly, this distinction of spirits is necessary in all spiritual trends and in their vicinity, in all the moods and judgments of the world, in public opinion, in all barely perceptible emanations of spiritual spaces. Here, the discernment of spirits is facilitated by the fact that one can know in advance that almost always only the evil spirit operates in these spaces, especially in the so-called mass media. Discrimination of spirits is necessary in literature. This distinction is especially necessary and difficult in works that have a "mixed" character, i.e., where the manifestations of pure and impure spirits are given mixed up. For a beginner who does not know how to distinguish, who does not have clear criteria for a person, even the works of a completely impure spirit may seem pure.

Finally, it is extremely important to discern spirits in people, especially those who have influence over others. Here the principle of distinction is approximately the same as with books, but everything is much more subtle, more serious, more complex and dramatic; and a man, like a book, cannot be pushed aside. There is also a specific danger in distinguishing spirits: to make this activity a kind of aimless game. Discrimination of spirits, like the whole search for the will of God, makes sense only when, ultimately, it is directed to the fulfillment of the will of God.

Fulfillment of the will of God

“Not everyone who says to me: Lord! God! enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven "(). “Not the hearers of the law are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified” (). So, the study, search, comprehension of the will of God has a great price, but not in itself, but as a collection of material that needs to be realized. Listening is for the sake of obedience.

The will of God, when such a task is set, is realized in the very practice of life. In turn, the practice of life, including its moral coloring, depends on the attitudes adopted. Thus, the next moment of fulfilling the will of God is the adoption of the right attitudes. First of all, we are talking about two types of interrelated attitudes: firstly, which is absolutely unacceptable for the executors of the will of God, and secondly, which is absolutely necessary, and this applies both to attitudes of the most general nature, and quite specific ones. Thus, first of all, the main moral attitude is adopted, from which the objectively moral life begins: it is necessary to fulfill all the commandments of God (and the reverse of it, negative: one must not violate the commandments of God).

The intensity of the adoption of attitudes in fact is completely different. From the softened type: "of course, it would be good, but ..." to the extremely maximalist patristic character: "death is better than sin." Precisely the same, but somewhat differently accentuated, are attitudes like: “complete removal of evil from my life where possible” and vice versa – the desire to maximize the introduction of good into life.

At the same time, the will of God proposes to accept one more setting of a general nature: the concepts of “good” and “evil” are now accepted not in the usual individual ideas, as before, but in those orientations that are revealed by God through the Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Holy Church.

The fulfillment of the will of God in this respect may turn out to be much more difficult than it seems, because the rejection of one's own ideas about good and evil is such a change in personality that is accomplished only in painful repentance.

Such installations may also have a more private, specific character; for example, the attitude to obedience to the spiritual father, and vice versa - to the impossibility of disobedience. Or even more specifically: to a firm determination in the fulfillment of some moral institution - let's say, to reading a daily akathist or to a mandatory nightly repentant self-report.

The next step in doing the will of God can be the determination, and then the implementation of actions aimed at eradicating sinful habits. And here it is important to approach the matter without romantic ideas, in particular, about one's capabilities, but also without hypocritical feelings of one's powerlessness. Therefore, the main attention should be paid to those habits and inclinations that are rather accidental and external than natural and organic, because the latter are eradicated both by phenomena and in fact very difficult and slow (for example, irritability), or even not completely eradicated. life, even with serious inner determination.

In terms of fulfilling the will of God, the first place should be given to those actions in relation to which the will of God is expressed quite definitely and unambiguously, especially in the moral sphere, i.e. commandments and other regulations, as well as various church norms that are universal in nature, i.e. that do not require special personal labor for cognition of the special, personally directed will of God.

It does not follow from this that the indications of the will of God, directed personally, can be of lesser importance. On the contrary, they can be extremely important. For example, a specific call of God to the priesthood is sent to a certain person. Such a call is a concretization of the general calling of God: “follow me”; the personal need for an honest and pious service is an expression of the general orientation towards service and the prohibition to bury one's gifts.

In this regard, constant readiness is very important, expressed in the formulation of the question: “what does he want from me personally?” (both in the most general sense and in specific situations. And then - gathering the determination to fulfill the decision of God, no matter what sacrifices this requires.

In the very fulfillment of the will of God, one of the most important and constant elements will be the removal of external and internal obstacles from the path on which the person is placed by the will of God. At first glance, external obstacles seem to be the most insurmountable; in fact, they are presented as such by their own interpretations, which turn out to be part of the system that is built by internal obstacles.

Various diabolical efforts and powerful influences of the world, which carry away the soul of a person along the path of unbelief, sin and self-will, extremely intensify in the soul of a person those processes that seek to lead him away from the path of God's truth, but the main thing in this respect is the struggle with oneself. It consists, first of all, in correctly and accurately evaluating the thoughts that arise in the soul, as well as strong steady movements, the essence of which is in opposition to the will of God; and appreciating, in various ways to overcome.

If we are talking about simple thoughts, then the surest thing is to cut them off with a simple prayer movement. With more constant actions, overcoming, of course, is more difficult, this process includes lengthy prayerful and repentant experiences, and serious work of the mind, and intense volitional efforts. Actually, by overcoming obstacles on the way to fulfilling the will of God, it is already half fulfilled, because through these actions the human soul is more and more purified. And this in itself constitutes the will of God. In addition, as the soul becomes purified, it becomes more and more capable of creative fulfillment of the will of God in general in all respects. But the most important thing is that the Holy Spirit indwells the purifying soul, for Whom there is no place in the unpurified soul, and having indwelled, He becomes the main

A doer, fulfilling in a person's life the will of the Heavenly Father. Ultimately, the main spiritual, moral and volitional efforts of a person should be directed to this, mainly - to build one's life and soul in such a way that He Himself becomes the main Actor.

But usually, even with a theoretical understanding, this is given by a long experience of gradual humility, during which a person, by virtue of his moral honesty, tries to fulfill the cognizable and visible will of God with his own efforts, until they finally exhaust themselves in the struggle with themselves and for themselves. Only then, having realized his insufficiency, does he, as it should be, repentantly and humbly begin to cry out to the mercy of God, and the omnipotent will of God begins to be done over him humbled. But this is not for everyone and not always.

These deeds of conforming the will of man to the will of God and of fulfilling the will of God are described in many works of experienced ascetics of piety, both private and general. They sometimes present very detailed and detailed schemes of life, consistent with these foundations. In particular, in the book of St. Ioan Maksimovich's "Iliotropion" ("Sunflower") describes all the known ways of coordinating the will of man with the will of God (just as a sunflower turns its head depending on the movement of the Sun during the day). Holy book. Theophan the Recluse "The Way to Salvation" is a detailed, meaningful and chronologically painted scheme of the spiritual and moral life of a Christian.

The fulfillment of the will of God by a person is the fulfillment of the will of God about a person in general and the will of God about a specific human person, because each person is given his own gifts, and, consequently, his own instructions for the realization of these gifts. In the free and conscious execution of these tasks, the personality is revealed as the image of God, which, therefore, has something in common with God, and therefore with all other personalities created by God according to the Prototype, which is the same for all, but it is also revealed as a unique, living, good, intelligent and beautiful manifestation of the spiritual and moral world.

Human life is simple and monotonous in its external structure. Work - household chores - family communication - other types of communication - different types of recreation - physiological needs - and that's it. It seems like the automatism of emptiness. And if there is no God for a person - and the truth is - the automatism of emptiness sets in, illusoryly colored. But God is revealed to man, and if only he risks taking steps towards God, and in these actions is the will of God, the true greatness of God and the whole world in the creations of God are revealed to him, and he himself is in the world. Everything is filled with meaning, and fullness, and depth, and sublimity, and life is spiritualized, and light enlightens his soul. In outward order, almost all of his affairs remain the same as they were before, and what they are like with his relatives, neighbors and co-workers, who have not recognized God, who have not recognized themselves. Moreover, his life in the outer current becomes more difficult than theirs. He fulfills the will of God, and all his everyday actions become different, sometimes very noticeably, and sometimes covertly. “Whether you eat, drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” ().

This is the will of God - that Divine meanings, calls and inspirations permeate the whole life of a person, in all its most everyday manifestations. It is God's will to see His creation in the glory of His image into which He created it. And in order for this holy will to be realized, the Firstborn from this dead world, which rejected obedience to the will of God, was sent, and was born, and incarnated, and was crucified, and the first perfect Man was resurrected, and thus it was given to everyone to enter into obedience to the will of God and to His glory. Thus, Christian morality is not the fulfillment of a set of rules, along with other human rules, but an entry into a life full of holy true meanings. This is a life in which a person fulfills his destiny, this is a life of transcendental truth, magnificent beauty and perfect goodness. This is the life of a reborn person. in God and with God.

- Initially, some "boundaries" of the will of God were outlined for man back in paradise, when he was given the commandment not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was a test that determines whether the human will will remain in harmony with the will of the Creator. If the commandment had not been violated, then the primitive people, and after them all of us, would be happy and immortal. Fulfillment of the will of God is what enables a person, a created and limited being, to be in communion and unity with his Creator, that is, this is the basis of human well-being. One saint said that the human will is a stone that opposes the will of God, or a copper wall between man and God. And this is true: where the will of man opposes the will of the Lord, a wall rises between man and God. Accordingly, in a fallen state, when our nature is distorted by the consequences of the fall, we are constantly standing in front of this wall, knocking on it, catastrophically not realizing that the only way to overcome it is to bring our will into full agreement with the will of God. We see the image of such consent in the Redemptive Sacrifice of Christ the Savior. There are different theological opinions about exactly when and how the atonement took place. Some theologians believe that this happened at the time of the Crucifixion - the offering of the Cross Sacrifice on Calvary, others are trying to dispute this and explain it in some other way. One can probably say that the process of redemption began with the Incarnation and ended with the moment when the Lord ascended into heaven and sent down to His disciples the Holy Spirit of Comforter. And in this process, the Savior, perfect God and perfect Man, showed us in Himself the complete agreement of the human will with the will of the Heavenly Father. We cannot imitate the Lord in His divine virtues, but in such agreement we should imitate, we should strive for it. Actually, this is the basis of everything in Christianity.

The Church says that the will of God is expressed in the commandments. And how do you know what His will is in each particular case?

“People sometimes mistakenly believe that the moral teaching of Christianity is exhausted by the ten commandments of the Sinai legislation and the nine beatitudes. This, of course, is not true. If we take the Gospel and, as one priest I know well advised his parishioners, try to write out from it everything that can be perceived as a commandment, then it will turn out that there are not ten, not nine, not nineteen commandments of God - the Gospel almost all consists of commandments. After all, when the Lord says that you need to turn your left cheek or that you need to go two fields with someone who forces you to go one, then these are also commandments. And if we take the Apostolic Epistles and see how much is commanded there, not only from the apostles, but also from the Lord Himself through their lips. When a person reads the Holy Scripture in this way, in most life situations he will not have the question of what the will of God is.

Why then do many people not know how to apply the gospel teaching to their lives?

Yes, one often hears: “I read the Gospel, but still, in a particular situation, I don’t know what to do.” Such bewilderment in the absolute majority of cases arises when a person does not live according to the Gospel and, deviating from it too often, has lost the clarity of understanding of God's will. There are few situations in which genuine bewilderment arises, and people actually know the answer that the Gospel gives them in this or that case, but most often they try to hide it, first of all, from themselves. However, cowardly neglecting this answer from day to day, a person thereby only complicates the situation and piles up more and more new circumstances, puts them into such a complex structure that cannot be corrected in one movement without breaking his own and someone else's life. , and maybe more than one. But the Lord always leaves a chance to still follow His will and not harm either one's own or someone else's soul - suggests small steps with which to start. It is only very important, when taking these steps, not to stop when it becomes difficult. This can be seen very well in the example of the so-called civil marriage, or rather, the cohabitation that people enter into without legitimizing their relationship. Unfortunately, such a mistake is also made by those who have already come to the Church and felt it as the center of their lives, confessed, partake of the Body and Blood of Christ. A person suddenly, as if in some kind of blindness, steps over his conscience and goes against the will of God and, as a result, ceases to live a full-fledged church life, being unable to take communion due to his illegal cohabitation, then in this so-called family, one problem after another - and now the person is at an impasse, he asks: "What should I do?" But there is always something that is the most serious sin and the cause of all other troubles. In this case, it is the sin of fornication. People live with each other outside of marriage, because they are not sure of something, they are not ready for something, they are waiting for something else. Based on my priestly experience, I can say that, as a rule, when one of them decides to refuse physical intimacy in such an inferior union, then the way out of the impasse is found quite soon. A man and a woman either part, realizing that they are still not on the way, or go to the registry office, and sometimes to the crown. Having made this or that decision, people breathe a sigh of relief, because clarity comes. And the reason for it is precisely that a person takes the first step for the sake of God, and the Lord gradually builds the rest. Put God first in your life, and you don't even have to think about how to put everything in its place, because He, the Creator of everything, will do it Himself.

—Father Nektary, we are talking about a moral choice between good and evil, but sometimes you objectively have to choose between two evils, how to recognize the will of God then?

– The ancient patericons describe to us cases when a similar choice arose in the lives of saints. A certain brother came to the old man and asked him for money. The old man had money, but he lied and did not give it. Another brother, who knew that there was money, asked the old man in private how he could lie. It turned out that the elder knew that money was needed for sin. “By lying, I saved myself from a greater sin — indulging my neighbor in the perdition of his soul,” said the saint. Abba Dorotheos says that one must always choose the greater of two good things, and the lesser of two evils.

— If we are talking about choosing a path in life, about finding one's destiny, is it necessary to know the will of God about oneself?

- It happens that a person hesitates between several paths, and it happens that he does not see the path at all and does not understand what he should do in life. Someone knows nothing and is not adapted to anything, someone, on the contrary, has different knowledge and abilities, but cannot determine which one to give preference to. I have repeatedly witnessed how the Lord opened the way for people and showed what He wants from them. The most striking, although certainly not exceptional, not the only examples concerned the service of the Church or the adoption of monasticism. The man rushed from side to side, could not understand where to go, and then at some point he said: “Lord, I don’t know which path is mine, and I completely commit my life into Your hands.” God always responded and revealed His will. But only in this case one must be absolutely ready to fulfill this will. And if what the Lord has prepared for you is fundamentally at odds with all your desires, if it is painful and difficult to accept, you can no longer back down. There are genuine examples when, at the moment of such a sincere and resolute turning to God, people suddenly realized that their destiny was monasticism, although before that they had not even looked in this direction once again. The monastic life seemed to them terrible, closed, but it was in it that they found their happiness. And it happened the other way around: respectable, conscientious people understood that they needed to ask the Lord to reveal His will to them, but at the same time they realized that this was a great and terrible request, and said: “I’m not ready.”

What do you do when you realize you're not ready?

“There is a way to go, and they have to go. Once the Monk Pimen the Great was told about a woman who traded herself for money, but at the same time she distributed almost all the money she earned to the poor. Reverend Pimen said that she would not remain long in her fornication. And indeed, over time, she began to sacrifice more and more to the poor, and left practically nothing for herself. Then Pimen the Great asked to bring her to him. This sinner ended her life in a monastery in repentance. A person sometimes cannot make any decisive choice, and sincerely cries about his impotence, feels himself in an unrequited debt and does that good, that blessing that is feasible for him. Sometimes for this little thing and for this blood of the heart, pain and tears, as if for some kind of thread, the Lord pulls a person out of the abyss. But if someone with a calm soul says: “I can’t do this, but I’ll do this,” that is, he tries to bargain with God, then nothing will work, it’s just madness.

“Suppose I understand what needs to be done in order to fulfill the will of God, and I do it, but I have not yet put my heart into it, I still desire my own in the depths of my soul. Will this not undermine my firmness and how can I bring my heart into harmony with the deed?

—The Apostle Peter says that day after day you need to try to make your election and calling as firm as possible, as faithful as possible, and move forward as quickly as possible. If you do this, you will never stumble (cf. 2 Pet. 1 , ten). Why think about whether I will go back when there is an opportunity to just go forward? And what about the heart? Man is a creature that depends to a great extent on skills. We see people who were born, perhaps not with disabilities, but became great athletes; who came from poor, absolutely uneducated families, and became great scientists. Why? By acquiring this or that skill through hard work, a person feels how what he has taught himself leads him further in life, and in the process, the heart also changes. Thus, only in a zealous struggle with passions is born a genuine, righteous hatred for them, as for enemies that torment the soul. Only in a stubborn pursuit of virtue does sincere love for it appear as a property that brings you closer to God.

- Speaking of the human will, one cannot but touch upon the question of the degree of its freedom. How does this freedom manifest itself?

- Remember the image from the Apocalypse: Behold, I stand at the door and knock...(Rev. 3 , 20) God can enter everywhere, because everything is His creation, but if you yourself do not let the Lord into your life and into your heart, He will not break in. Only, you see, if a person says: “Well, I don’t want the will of God!”, he will still be included in the flow of this will, he will be some kind of particle of God’s Providence, and God Himself, no matter how scary, will be outside of his life . God is Love, and His relationship with man is a relationship of love, and where there is love, there is always freedom. Therefore, the Lord does not prevent any of us from making a free choice with each of our actions - to respond to His love or not, to approach Him through the coordination of our will with His will or not. And in the end, we ourselves become the sources of all our troubles, because we do not always know how to responsibly manage the gift of freedom. At the same time, the real miracle of the wisdom of God is that God accomplishes what seems decidedly impossible: out of the evil we do in our freedom, out of the mistakes we make, he very often builds our or someone else's salvation. He even allows the devil to tempt us, so that in the fight against this implacable and vigilant enemy we can understand for ourselves and prove to ourselves that we still want to be with God. Only most often we are busy with something completely different: we strive to ensure that we feel good, pleasant, comfortable; we ardently wish to receive something momentary, which, perhaps, we will forget later. A lot of people rush about in search of happiness, but, despite all their efforts, they cannot break out of the circle of a dull, joyless life. Because man is created for something completely different. You can walk on the same earth, get wet in the same rain, knead the same dirt, but at the same time feel like a being of a completely different world, a different Kingdom, but only if you really seek unity with the Creator of this Kingdom, with God . Then our life turns into a miracle that does not stop.