What Jesus accomplished

There exists a wide variety of thoughts concerning what exactly it was that Jesus actually accomplished in his death and resurrection.  None of the answers or explanations of the Protestant world ever really sufficiently answered it for me though.
And then I became Orthodox. It's funny how different things appear when looked upon from a different angle.  Stranger still, in becoming Orthodox, I became much more covenantal in my thinking, moreso than I ever was as a Calvinist.
We see it like this.  Jesus died for the world.  This means that Jesus' death was exhaustive and complete. His blood was shed for all mankind,  for every single human that ever lived or ever will live.  Does this then mean that all men will go to heaven?  Am I arguing for universalism?
No.
We can look back through the Old Testament and observe how God had always dealt with his people.  When we look at the Jews, coming out of slavery in Egypt,  they were, all of them, the people of God.  They were in covenant with him.  But in Old Covenant typological fashion, those who were unfaithful to their covenantal responsibilities did not enter the Promised Land.
Another example is seen in the "once a year Levitical sacrifice.  Once a year, the high priest would enter the holy of holies and offer up a bloody sacrifice for every single Jew.  Every single one of them had his sins covered.  Does this mean that every single Jew enjoyed the covenantal blessings? No, but only those who were faithful to their covenantal responsibilities.
I hope by this point you see where this is going.  Even though Jesus died for every single human being,  we still have responsibilities.  We are called to purify ourselves, to love God and to love neighbor.  If we spend all our time building our portfolio to ensure a comfortable retirement,  we have our priorities wrong.
Jesus died and rose again, not so we could be comfortably well off, but so that we could pursue holiness and love.

Uphill battle

I may have written about this before, but it is in the forefront of my mind, so I'll bring it up again.  Forgive me if I am repeating myself.
I'll start by saying that I believe my present lamentation "is the way it is supposed to be." In other words,  the longer we are Christians and really trying to progress in our sanctification,  the worse things around us will seem/be.
There are many analogies that could be used to describe this.  For example,  a bank teller handling cash,  an art expert assessing fine art, the symphony conductor criticising his musicians.  All of these situations share at least one thing, exposure. The more one is exposed to "the real thing", the more glaring and repugnant the imitations become.
For the Christian,  the longer we focus upon, strive after and long for an ever deepening relationship with God,  the uglier and detestable the things of the world become.  The really difficult part in all of this is our sinful nature.  Our stupid, fallen flesh constantly drags us down and lies to us. And far too often, we believe it.
The other hard part is our lifetime here among it all.  We are here in fallen America, with all of its comfort and ease,  having to struggle against the "normalcy" of our culture.  It it's a difficult, uphill battle.
If I would only keep my passions at bay, follow my heart instead of my passions and flesh,  I might actually make some real progress.
But alas, stupid me,  wallowing in the ease of modern day America. Pray for me, a sinner.

New President

I believe that this election is possibly unprecedented in US history.  I have never seen such an extreme difference in candidates, to the point that the followers of one candidate despise the other.  Be that as it may, the reality is that Donald Trump is our new president.  Love him or hate him, he is the man, so we better get used to the idea.
This leads me to the protesting and rioting that is taking place in highly Democratic areas.  I really have to wonder, do these people actually believe that rioting, violence and vandalism is an appropriate response to their dislike for Mr. Trump?  How does spray painting “F*ck Trump“ on someone elses vehicle constitute a reasonable protest?
Trump is our new president, but will not take office until January 20, 2017.  Why don’t we simply wait and see what kind of president he will be?  Instead of responding to what we think he might do/be, why don’t we wait and then respond to what he is actually doing?
We have been using the electoral vote process for over 200 years and everyone has been pretty much happy with the process.  If you don’t like it, then pursue legal (and effective) methods for changing it.  Breaking the front window of a local business is hardly a reasonable response to the success of the presidential candidate that you don’t like.