STAND FIRM IN THE FAITH!

It is rightly believed by many that our post modern, post Christian society is rapidly descending into the mire of depravity, unbridled greed, senseless violence, and deception.  Western civilization has largely forsaken God and we have all but lost that moral compass that served to guide us--however imperfectly--in the past.  Our children are taught in our secularized schools that there is no absolute truth, all values are essentially relative, gender identity is fluid, life in the womb is not inherently sacred--and marriage means whatever our courts declare it to mean.

Yet St. Paul confesses boldly, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.  Be not carried about with diverse and strange doctrines.  For it is a good thing that the heart be established by grace...."  Therefore it is imperative that we--as faithful Orthodox Christians--should stand firm in the Faith once delivered to the Apostles and sealed by the blood of the martyrs.  "For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come."

Truth be told, we are but pilgrims upon this earth, called to be in the world, but not of  it.  As the Holy Apostle beseeches (inspired by the Holy Prophet Jeremiah), "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing."  And so we are commanded to "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

Of course, it is more likely nowadays that our witness will provoke hostility and hatred rather than invoke a desire for repentance and salvation.  But so what?  We are indeed surrounded by "a great cloud of witnesses"--the multitude of holy martyrs of all ages who gladly exchanged their blood for the incomparable glory of God's eternal Kingdom.  Strengthened by the grace if God, we are called to conform our lives not to a world sunk in sin and held in bondage to the Evil One, but rather to our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ--through Whom alone we may hope to be delivered from the darkness of nihilistic hopelessness and despair into the Kingdom of Light.