The gauge of faith's exactitude, appropriateness, and even its orthodoxy is manifest in man's readiness to reject the whole of earthly life, and with that to relinquish all its comfort and false glory if it conflicts with even the least of Christ's commandments.Ever and always, your whole life long the devil will pressure you with all possible guile to ease up in your adherence to Truth in order to maintain your worldly or social status. He will alarm you and confuse you so that you might relinquish Christ's commandment in order to attain an opportunity for pomp, authority, and outward glory. Thus the Gospel, and along with it Christ, become victims along the path of your utilization and exploitation of chances for gain, comfort, and transient glory. And yet every time an opportunity to betray faithfulness and truth is presented to you, Christ will cast upon you a piercing gaze such as the look He gave to Peter at the time of his denial, a look that will pierce your conscience and the very depths of your being, so that you will perchance turn away from what you have resolved to do.
This is the measure of free faith, and blessed is he who chooses loss, weariness, contempt, illness, or even death instead of relinquishing his fidelity to God. For if he dares to choose this, then he will receive strength that will compensate all loss—a strength he had never known or expected, that strength which we call grace, which means "the gratuitous omnipotence of God," and which is so tightly bound to faith: "For by grace you have been saved through faith." (Ephesians 2:8) It is not just any faith, but rather the faith of one who is bold and defiant of death. This omnipotence makes hard things easy for you, and elevates your flesh and senses above the needs of nature; thus it is that man prays without fatigue, fasts without wasting away, serves without flagging, loves without ceasing…
1 comment:
Wandered over here from IBA, and I love your blog! It is ethereal. Especially the music.
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