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.

Setting the Bar

I’ve spoken before about judging others and judging ourselves. The first is very easy, the second is very easy to get wrong.  A different aspect of this came to mind, and that is the idea of where we set our bar.  In other words, the goals/standards that we set in any/every area of life will determine how our life plays out.  The thing that really stimulated this line of thinking is that of raising children.  So often we hear about so-and-so’s kids are “such good kids”.  This is all fine but by what standard are those child being judged?  If we as parents set a standard or a “bar” that we expect our children to attain, we ought to be aware of how it is that we are actually determining that standard.

If we set the standard very low or set it according to worldly standards, it would be pretty easy for a child to be labeled as “good”.  Whereas if we look to those in the past, or those within a markedly Christian culture, we will find that the label “good” will be much more difficult to attain.  I suppose determining our expectations requires some real wisdom.

One very difficult aspect of this is the responsibility of helping our children attain these goals.  As is typical of goal setting, we choose a goal that we would like to attain, but have not yet done so.  In other words, we may be choosing goals for our children that we ourselves have not attained, which introduces a real difficulty in leadership.  Especially when we can only provide a bad example.  Children will follow our actual example far more than our verbal instruction.

The end result of this thought process should be two fold. One, we must deliberately think through and establish a realistic but yet worldview appropriate standard for ourselves and our children. And don’t be afraid to seek out help in this regard.  Two, it will be of no value to us to judge, critique or analyze other people in this regard, for their standard may be way out of alignment with what we regard as “good“.  This even goes as far as seeing others children and lamenting why their kids seem so “good” when our own seem rebellious.  It may be that their standard would not be acceptable to us.

This is not about “the ends justify the means” but instead, “x” is our goal, we should not compromise to successfully attain a lower standard.

The media

I personally don't put much value on our political system.  I think it has strayed far from its original form.  I think too that much of it is controlled by special interest groups.  But, be that as it is,  they are still in power.
The other side of it is the media.  They too have strayed from honest journalism and also are directed by special interest groups. 
So, with those two points in mind, we can consider what is happening in Syria.  One cannot believe what the media is telling us, nor can we believe what our government is telling us.
I'll just offer one warning. Always question what you are told, in this regard,  for much goes on that we don't hear about,  for reasons we don't know.

The point

"God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life." Anyone who has been around for long enough must realize that the way these words are defined are probably not done so in the way the recipients of these words initially expect.
What I am saying is this. While these words are very true and exactly right,  the Christian path is hard work.  We are to strive after holiness while we live in a culture that doesn't.  We are the odd ones.
Life with God is wonderful,  but it is a lifetime of fighting against sin and our own passions.  Life is bootcamp.

Fasting

The very unAmerican and foreign practice of fasting is actually a regular practice in the historic Christian church.  Christians have, from the beginning, consistently and regularly practiced fasting. But what does that mean?  In Scripture, we see a few examples of people doing a fast.  But these are the extreme, total fasts, like Moses and Jesus, both, on a mountain, eating nothing for forty days.  This is not what they church encourages us to do.  Not to say that the church discourages us from doing these, but the regular practice of fasting in the church is different.
The Orthodox church has, in its yearly calendar, a regular cycle of fasting.  You can look here to see the calendar for our current month: calendar.
What is the point of fasting?  For the Orthodox church, fasting is a tool to help us learn self control.  We practice a regular cycle (weekly) of fasting from certain foods, at certain times, to learn to be able to say no to our flesh/passions/desires and focus on prayer and things spiritual.  The church gives very general directions about how to fast and from what food and one can receive specifics on fasting from their priest or spiritual father, if something in the general instructions is unclear, or if you think you see yourself as an exception from these, for some reason (medical or otherwise).
The simple fact is, fasting is very valuable.  So much of our lives, especially in modern day America, is about instant gratification and having a multitude of choices, instantaneously.  At this point in time, we can pretty much have whatever we want, whenever we want it.  This mentality is very bad for our souls.  This sort of thinking/practice totally gratifies our flesh and our passions, which is the exact opposite of how we grow and mature in holiness.
We can really see the wisdom of God, in the church, for fasting really does work.  It is far more difficult to do than it sounds.  To have a refrigerator full of food and only allow one self to eat what is directed by the church is a struggle.
When we combine this sort of fasting with extra prayer, reading and church attendance, the long term results are amazing.  Just like someone who has committed to jogging everyday, one does not necessarily see immediate results, but in the long term, one will eventually be able to run a marathon.  Fasting is one of the tools the church has given us to help us grow in holiness.  We learn to turn away from our passions, we learn to fight against sin, we learn how to love God and love neighbor and we learn how to see into our hearts and repent of the sin we find there.
Here is a link to some good books on the practice of fasting: here.