"Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away..." the Holy Apostle Paul writes to the Hebrews, and again..."How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" For truly the living God Whom we worship is nearer to us than the very air we breathe. It is through Him alone that we live and move and have our being, and it is by His grace that we are vouchsafed to become partakers of the Divine Nature, that we might be granted the gift of eternal life in His heavenly Kingdom.
For it is sure and certain that the God Whom our father among the saints Gregory Palamas proclaims is not some abstract philosophical construct totally inaccessible to our human experience. While the essence of God is indeed totally transcendent to every conceivable conception of the human mind, His energies permeate the entire created order, sustaining every particle of existence...whether seen or unseen. Unlike the false God of the Muslims, the God we worship is love, and it is precisely through love that he sustains the universe and opens unto us the path that leads to eternal life.
God alone is truly eternal--Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, and so--of all things in this created universe--love alone shall endure unto endless ages! And so--if we truly love God with all of our heart, soul and mind, and our neighbor as our very own self--we shall be saved--and truly nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!
It is, however, unfortunate that we latter day Christians have rendered love itself into some sort of abstract principle, essentially unrelated to our everyday life in this world. For to truly love means that we cease to exist as self-centered egos. We must die to this world if we desire to live in Christ--and that is the great challenge we face during this Lenten Fast. So may God grant to us all patience, courage, meekness and humility...and all things else that are needful for salvation.
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