What have you left for the sake of God
Man, in fasting, leaves for God the pleasure of the body: the pleasure of food, the pleasure of eating and drinking, the lust of the belly. And this matter carries a spiritual meaning, which is that a person must leave something for the sake of God. And here we ask:
What have you left for the sake of God?
The first commandment that God gave to man was fasting.
He commanded him to leave a specific tree bearing a specific fruit from among all the trees of Paradise and their fruits.
What matters is that God commanded Adam and Eve to leave something for His sake, even if it was just a fruit.
The Lord Christ, for our sake, left His heaven and the splendor of His glory, emptied Himself, and took the form of a servant. In His crucifixion, He left rest for our sake and entered into pain, and in His death He left bodily life. And in His fasting, He left all people and withdrew to the mountain, and left food and fasted.
Therefore, we must care about this virtue of leaving, or the virtue of asceticism, and leave something for the sake of God.
Man is fought by accumulation and hoarding; he is fought by desires and lusts; he is fought by possession and love of ownership. He is fought by the self: how to grow, how to be satisfied, how to take, and how to be filled. And in all this, God gave man His commandments to teach him leaving, so that he may not be a lover of himself, or a lover of his possessions, or a lover of what he owns, or a lover of honor, greatness, and personal glory, or of anything in his hand.
For this reason, man needs to train himself to leave something for the sake of God, as a preparation to leave everything, and for God to become for him the all in all.
Among the commandments that God gave us so that we may train ourselves in leaving is the commandment of tithes. He said to us: I will give you something on the condition that you leave a tenth of it, so do not cling to the whole. God, in whose hand are all goodness and gifts, and who is able to create whatever He wills of goodness, wealth, and gifts, is not in need of our tithes.
But He gave us the commandment of tithes so that we may become accustomed to leaving something.
We become accustomed to giving, and not only to taking; we give money, and we give love. We give of ourselves, and we do not care about accumulation and hoarding.
The same commandment can also apply to firstfruits, vows, freewill offerings, and to all the offerings that a person presents to God, and all the alms and gifts that he presents to his brethren in humanity. All of these carry the meaning of the virtue of leaving, and this virtue increases in depth the more a person leaves for those who are in need.
If you give from your luxuries, from your wealth and abundance, from the plenty that you have, you do not feel that you have left something of value. But when you give while you are in need and while you are poor, then for the sake of love you have left something that has value to you. Just as the widow of Zarephath left, during the time of famine, all that she had of flour and oil for Elijah the prophet; and like the widow who left the two mites, which were all that she possessed.
The depth of this commandment also appears when you leave something for the sake of the comfort of others, and you leave it in love, cheerfulness, and contentment.
For this reason the Scripture says: “God loves a cheerful giver.”
Thus, this virtue of leaving appears in its height and depth when it is with joy, not out of compulsion or coercion, and not with narrowness of heart or grumbling; otherwise it is merely an external leaving and not one that proceeds from the heart within, because the heart must participate with the hand in the virtue of leaving.
The history of the saints gives us beautiful images of saints who left the most precious things they had, or all that they had, for the sake of God. Such as Saint Serapion the Great, who left his garment, then left his Gospel, out of love for the poor, and returned to his cell naked.
This depth in leaving agrees with the commandment of the Lord which says: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and come, follow Me.”
If a brother enters your cell and admires something in it, do not let him go unless that thing is with him.
This means that we do not cling to anything except through love, and for its sake we leave everything. It also means that our hearts do not become attached to anything in the world, and that we do not let any of our possessions prevent us from carrying out the commandment or prevent us from loving our brethren and serving them.
If you have something, leave it for the sake of the Lord. And if you do not have, then be ready in your heart to leave. And what you cannot carry out practically, carry it out in your heart.
Therefore, when we pray in the Litany of the Offerings, we do not ask only that the Lord recompense those who gave, the owners of much and the owners of little, but we also say to Him: “and those who wish to offer to You and have nothing.” These also we ask for them the heavenly reward.
The Apostle Paul, in the virtue of leaving, said a beautiful word:
“I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”
He left everything and did not feel that he had left anything. He did not feel that he had left something important or of value, but counted everything as rubbish, in order to gain Christ.
What the Apostle Paul did, the rest of the apostles also did. And Peter the Apostle expressed this about them when he said to the Lord his immortal phrase: “Behold, we have left all and followed You.”
This virtue of leaving is also included in another commandment, which is keeping the Sabbath.
God gave us a week of life, on the condition that we leave one day of it to be for the Lord. It was the Sabbath in the past, and became Sunday in the New Testament. This day we do not work any work for our ordinary daily life or our material life, but it is a day for the Lord.
There are people who did not leave for the sake of the Lord only one day in the week, but left the entire lifetime. Their whole life became a Sabbath for the Lord. These are those who consecrated their entire lives to God; every minute of their lives became the Lord’s possession. Some became priests, some became monks or nuns, some became servants of the Word, and some worked in the service of the Church and in the service of the Kingdom in any form, saying: “If we live, we live to the Lord.”
Just as God asked people to leave something of their money and something of their time, He also asked them to leave children for His sake.
This leaving appears clearly in the commandment concerning firstborns.
The Lord said: “Consecrate to Me every firstborn, whatever opens the womb.” Before the Aaronic priesthood, all the firstborns belonged to the Lord; they were the Lord’s portion. Indeed, the commandment of firstborns also included cattle and sheep, and included fruits and the produce of the land. Every person became aware that he does not own everything in his hand, but leaves something of it for the Lord: he leaves the firstfruits, he leaves the very first bundle that he harvests from his field.
The commandment of firstborns appeared in its depth when it was related to the only son.
Look at the Lord’s saying to our father Abraham: “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and offer him to Me as a burnt offering on the mountain which I shall show you.”
Who can do this?! Not only to leave his son for God, but to leave him in the midst of fire on the altar and offer him himself. But here the depth of leaving appears.
In the same situation, but to a lesser degree, Hannah offered her son Samuel, her firstborn, her only one, and the fruit of her tears, and he became a servant of the Lord.
And the same situation occurred with the Virgin Mary, when her Son, her firstborn and only One, went up on the Cross.
Are you also ready to offer one of your children to the Lord—not to be offered as a burnt offering on the altar, nor to ascend the Cross, but to be a servant of the Lord, consecrated to His service or worship? If only you could.
The love of leaving appears beautifully in the story of Araunah the Jebusite.
David the prophet came to him asking to buy his threshing floor so that it might become a temple for the Lord. Araunah rejoiced and was not content with leaving this threshing floor for the Lord, but wanted to give it to the Lord as a gift—not only the threshing floor, but also “the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for wood” (2 Sam 24). To Him he gave everything, and with joy.
What matters is that you express your love for God by leaving something for His sake, and that you express your lack of love for the world and your asceticism toward it by leaving something of it. And to the extent that you leave, so will your asceticism be, and so will your love be. This world that you leave now by your own will, before the time comes when you leave it against your will.
What you leave now by your own will is counted for you as righteousness. But the whole world, when you leave it against your will, is not counted for you as anything.
Therefore, it is better for you to leave now, and by what you leave you store up treasures for yourself in heaven, instead of clinging to these treasures here and then leaving them despite yourself, without reward or compensation there.
By this principle the great saint Abba Anthony acted, and he was wise in his action and in his far-sighted view toward eternity.
With the same wisdom Moses the prophet acted, when he left Pharaoh’s palace, “esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Pharaoh.”
He left wealth, titles, authority, leadership, and command—all of this for the sake of the Lord. Therefore, he became “a god” to Pharaoh.
In the same way, Saint George left his military position and all the temptations that were offered to him, and thus did all the martyrs. All the martyrs proved their love for God by leaving everything for His sake, even their very lives.
And you—what does the Lord ask of you in your fast? Is it merely a few kinds of food? How trivial is this food when compared to what the saints left for the sake of the Lord.
Look at what the Lord said to our father Abraham in his calling: “Leave your land, your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you.”
And the same words the psalmist says in the psalm to the human soul:
“Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear; forget your people and your father’s house. So the King will greatly desire your beauty; because He is your Lord, worship Him.”
Saint Rebecca, for the sake of Isaac, left her family and her land and went after him to a distant land. Arsenius, the teacher of the sons of kings, left his great position and became a monk. Maximus and Domitius, the two princes, left the kingdom and all positions and went to the wilderness for worship.
Monks left the entire world out of love for God, and martyrs left life out of love for God, and all the righteous left the pleasures of the world and its lusts.
Also, missionaries left their countries and their families and went to the depths of Africa, and to barbarian lands, and to lands that eat human flesh, all for the sake of the Kingdom of God and the message of the Gospel. And you—what will you leave for the sake of the Lord?
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An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Sixth Year (Issue Eleven) 14-3-1975
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