At the beginning of a Russian document on St Paisios, we see many different logs scattered in the garden out his Kelli, which served as seats
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd35W6lp3GQ
Surrounded by the rough exterior of the bark, there are swirls of fibres showing the age of the tree.
It s a beautiful image of the way all things in nature take time to grow. The tree took time to grow.
But faith also takes time to grow.
We cannot acquire faith by a command, by an order.
We should not feel deficient if we cannot and do not have faith on some external command. We should not feel something is lacking in us if we go into, say,a church and we do not feel faith despite all the icons, sermons.
Just like a tree does not grow instantly on command, so our faith has to grow from inward experience, from within us.
It is our personal adventure.
Christ is a person and He wants us to know him as persons, be very close to each of us personally, save us personally.
And faith does not grow just by sitting around.
"It is nourished by experiences gained in enterprises
whose outcome we cannot fully determine ; in sail-
ing the oceaUj climbing mountains, in searching after truth, in the struggle against evil social forces,
even in boarding the express train, or the Atlantic," says Emmanual Lasker.
Lasker says we have to attempt something which is bigger than ourselves, something dangerous, take on a struggle with an enemy who is more powerful, for example, or encounter death, a force more powerful, for us to be aware of how Christ is present and helps us.
We must recognize our lives are part of a huge battle.
There is a force for goodness and for evil.
We must chose.
Christ and Satan are in engaged in a terrible struggle.
There is no grey area.
There is black and white, night and day.
The principles of the evil person are the opposite of the principles of the good person.
Our life is a struggle.
In the Book of Revelation, the Beast is portrayed as having overwhelming, global power that appears insurmountable to human beings. Revelation 13 depicts the Beast as a worldwide political, military, and economic system that dominates the earth, with the inhabitants asking, "Who is like the beast, and who can make war against him?"
says AI.
If we look at the Beast and become hopeless and passive, we are already defeated. We are seeing the world only with human logic not with divine logic. We are showing we do not believe in Christ at all, in fact.
If we do not join the battle, we have lost.
St Paisios says when we go to fight any evil, especially the End Times evil of the Beast, the Dragon and the False Prophet, we need to ask Christ for help. We need to pray constantly for help.
But St Paisios also says we can only ask Christ for help after we have done everything in our power.
It is up to us to start the battle against the Beast with faith and trust in Christ, even when it looks according to the logic of human reasoning like the evil we are fighting is so powerful we do not stand a chance. Our faith put into action will attract Christ s help.
If we never move outside our small circle of our daily life, which is under our control, never take on evil, never fight for justice, for others, we will not get to know personally the power of Christ or see how he helps us in our dificulties, trials, and how he uses these also to change us, make us more aware.
It is when we have our backs to the wall and there is no escape,when we ar surrounded on all sides, and we still escape over and over that we realize there is a higher force helping us. We experience it. We are grateful. We feel love for Christ for saving us, to put it simply.
The faith we are asked to have is not that Jesus Christ will eventually shower us with all the material things we want. That is a false faith preached by the prosperity gospel.
The faith that we are asked to have is " the trust that God who gives the
sparrows food will not forget human beings," The faith that the things we need will be provided for us as and when we need them every day in material termsso we can make progress in our spiritual struggle to get to Paradise, to Heaven, to bliss.
But we must do everything in our power, St Paisios stresses just like Lasker.
"But those who look upon faith
as an end in itself without using will and reason
to the utmost extent do not satisfy the demands of
justice. For they leave to others to do their share
of the work for the mxaintenance of humanity," says Emmual Lasker.
Our culture has nurtured in people a false belief that the only thing they have to care about is themselves or their family. The rest is not their concern or their responsibility. They should leave it to..yes, the politicians, the parties, the experts, to the Beast. Our culture has nurtured the false belief that playing it safe by obtaining secure good job, a monthly salary, acquiring insurance policies, a daily routine, all of this is not just a desirable goal but the ultimate goal when it can be a prison and a death sentence.
That a good job, material things can become a prison if we cling to them above all else became clear to many people during covid. To save their jobs, their mortgages, fund their holidays at the beach etc, people accepted covid jabs which resulted in some of those same people losing all of that and their very lives too or their family members.
We need to have courage to believe there is something more to life than material things. Courage brings faith. Faith gives us more courage. We see things which seemed impossible become possible, see victory emerging out of defeat.
The Beast is granted authority over "every tribe, people, language, and nation," making its influence absolute.
But only for 3 and a half years.
After that, its power implodes.
Because Christ is far more powerful than the Beast and allows him only as much freedom as Christ decides is good for our benefit., says St Paisios.
Glory be to God,we are seeing the power of the Beast imploding in real time, Satan failing to rally His forces for a final global battle (no hypersonic missiles, air defence missiles, money) and Satan s forces attacking each other (the US and EU are in a major conflict over Trump s frankly mad plan to seize Greenland when the people there and Denmark and Europe do not want the US)
We just narrowly avoided WW3 caused by the delusional Beast, forced at the last moment to retreat because its enterprises failed. It failed to topple the Iranian government using economic sanctions, currency manipulation, a colour revolution and air strikes, and it could not face Iranan hypersonic missiles.
The Beast appears to have to flee to Crete briefly on Wednesday to escape Iskander missiles also sent to Iran from Russia.
We are seeing the Russians come out triumphant in this struggle against the Beast through their faith in Jesus Christ.
A report by RUSI and Justin Bronk has had to admit Russia s airforce is now stronger than when the war started and can defeat Europe.
Bronk argues the US now has to devote so many assets to containing super powerful China, it cannot support Europe in the event of a conflict with Russia.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bj%C3%B6rn-m%C3%BCller-6b341ba8_insightful-commentary-from-justin-bronk-activity-7415327833209872385-dkmF
https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/insights-papers/evolution-russian-and-chinese-air-power-threats
https://news.inbox.lv/14zptxy-the-russian-aviation-has-strengthened-significantly-during-the-war-nato-fatally-misunderstands-this-analyst?language=ee
We are seeing the country whose armed forces seek help from Christ in their battle against the Beast coming out victorious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7hr_vfSJmk
We are seeing the victory of a Christian country in a disintegrating, chaotic globe.
An Orthodox Christian country, Russia, is coming out top against all odds.
Bankster Mark Carney called it "a new world order" as he travelled to China to see how much money he and the banksters can suck from the Chinese, no doubt.
But he seemed to recognize a profound shift has occurred.
CIA? asset Alex Jones says the NWO s empire is exhaling its last toxic breath.
https://www.infowars.com/posts/the-nwos-last-toxic-breath
We seem to be on the cusp of a new age where Christ and people matter again.
St Paisios says much good will come out of this chaos.
Christ wants to take us, coach potatoes, and get us trim and in shape.
Let us not be afraid of taking on new challenges, going to new places, strange place.
When we have Christ at our side, Panagia and the Saints, everything is like being at home, sitting by the fire in our home,among our family, among our friends.
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