Jesus made it very clear that the most important thing is loving God and loving neighbor. We see this emphasis in the Orthodox church, but in a very interesting way. The monastic ideal, if one believes themselves so called (as opposed to the married path), is about totally coming oneself to God for the purpose of purity and prayer for the world.
It is here that we see Jesus' directions lived out. We love God by hating sin and striving after purity and communion with God. We love neighbor by praying for them, a lot.
But how does obedience to Jesus' manifest itself in the married life. Really, in exactly the same way. We commit ourselves to purity within the married state, which is a very real form of chastity, we love God by hating sin and striving after holiness and we love our neighbor by praying for them, a lot.
We are all in different situations but we all have the same goal, loving God and loving neighbor. It is our responsibility to work out how. A good place to start is in gaining guidance from your priest.
Monday, September 1, 2014
Our responsibility
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment