Be Transfigured Ministries

It is tempting to think that our success has everything to do with our hard work. It is even more tempting to think that the fruit of our success are meant for our pleasure. Neither is true. In fact no matter what our vocation, whether we are fishermen or farmers, our only part in our success is a bit of hard work. Everything else is a gift from God and that gift has a purpose. When we were married the priest asked God to bless us so that we could help others. Thanksgiving is a wonderful opportunity to thank God for the blessings He has given to us by reaching out and helping other this year.

Learning from Each Other

“I grow old always being taught.” This ancient Greek saying

expresses a truth about life that leads to heaven. It is only in a relationship

that we can be taught and learn from each other. With the Church as our mother

and teacher we learn to live together in humility, faith, patience and love

waiting for God’s blessings. It is together that we experience joy and sorrow,

anxiety and peace. We won’t always get what we want, when we want, how we want

it, but through humility, patience and love as expressed by Jairus and the

woman with the flow of blood in the Gospel, we learn to give glory to God.

When we hear about demon possession in the Holy Scriptures

many of us don’t consider that we have anything to benefit. Many of us either

do not believe in demons, or we accept that we aren’t ourselves possessed by

demons. The truth is, we all have demons that take control over our life. Our

demons may not be the spiritual demons that we read about in the Holy

Scriptures, but we all have struggles that control us with no less power to

cripple our lives. The Good News is that God is able and willing to heal us

from our demons, no matter what that demon may be, and we can be freed from the

struggle to follow Him and be a witness of the great things God has done for

us. 

When it comes to our soul many of us live as if everything

we learned in Sunday School was enough to get us through the daily struggles of

life. Some even leaven their soul unattended, or worse allow bad seed to make

its way in. As the Lord explains in the Parable of the Sower, our soul is at

times hard, rocky, filled with weeds, or even rich fertile soil, but it doesn’t

happen by itself. It requires work to improve the condition of our soul to

receive the Word of God, and it requires work to maintain a healthy soul. Luck

for us we have the Church and the way of life of Orthodox Christianity to work

our soul to prepare it for the Good Seed, the Word of God.

Sometimes we just need a bit of a reminder that, even though

life has its challenges, the hope of the Gospel isn’t about this life. The hope

of the Gospel is in the life that God has planned for us, living with Him in heaven.

Saint Paul knew this. He knew the true struggle of every Christian especially

in a world that at the time was much less tolerant of Christians that today’s

world. Eve depended on her understanding of the benefit of eating the apple

rather than on God, and we know what happened to Eve? Saint Paul is trying to

remind us, “The transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.” The Church,

through the entire life it presents to us, is trying to help us depend upon God

rather than ourselves, and that takes endurance. It won’t be easy. That much we

know, but it is worth the struggle.

Every now and then there comes a time in our life when God

calls us to reach out of our comfort zone and trust that He knows our abilities

and has our best interest in His mind. At those moments, it doesn’t do us any

benefit to look back at our failures but ahead to God’s glory and promise for a

blessed future. Too often our fears and lack of confidence take control and we

refuse to trust that God indeed knows what He is doing.

Jesus Christ invites every human being to follow Him to

heaven with the challenge to “deny himself, take up his cross and follow.” Ever

since Adam and Eve in the Garden, we have struggled with following our own will

or the will of God. But if we desire to follow Christ to heaven, the first

thing we must do is deny ourselves. Problem is.....most of us don’t do well

with the denial part of following Christ.

When it comes to ‘being saved’ the Orthodox Church teaches a

different understanding of our relationship with God than other Christians.

What makes the issue more complicated is that we often use the same terms, like

saved, to discuss quite different concepts. So when an Orthodox Christian is

asked the question, “Are you saved?” our answer should be, “I was saved, I am

saved, and I am being saved.” We do not pinpoint our salvation to an exact

moment in time as do many Protestants. For us, the concept is different.

It doesn’t matter how you hear it, the Gospel is Good News. God

has promised that our sins would be forgiven if only we ask. It doesn’t matter

how much we owe God, the truth is that we could never possibly pay off what we

owe no matter how we try, and still God is willing to forgive us. That’s Good

News, right? It’s always Good News. It’s the way we listen that effects the way

we hear the Good News. In the Gospel of Matthew (18.23-35) we find a man who

owed more than he could ever pay. His debt was forgiven, but he was unwilling

to forgive even the smallest debt a fellow servant owed to him. In return for

his selfishness the master threw him in prison and he spent all eternity being

tortured. But God still is willing to forgive us, and that will always be Good

News.

Our final “Ask Father” sermon for the season answers the question, “What is our Church view on the state law and our religious law?”During election season the balance between Church and State is often brought into the highlight. It can be a bit confusing navigating between the issues to determine if we as Orthodox Christians are obligated to follow the State or follow the Church. A brief study of the words of Saint Paul (Romans 13.1-7)helps us see the governing authorities have an obligation as well, to defend goodness. There might reason to ignore certain laws, but that does not eliminate the consequences.The end has a bonus question, so watch until the end!