Positive Action
Positive Action
*Resistance to sin is not guaranteed without positive action…
*If the love of God enters your heart, it disperses every sin.
*What is positive action? And what are all its elements…?
*If you become occupied with God, you love Him; and if you love Him, you become occupied with Him.
*When does Satan respect you and fear you? And when does he despise you?
Through positive action you establish balance with the wars of sin.
Every human being, in building his spiritual life, faces two important matters. The first is resisting sin in order to purify his heart and mind, and to cleanse his senses and his body. This may extend to resisting sin in others as well, so that he may share in the purity of the society in which he lives. It is a life of struggle against sin and Satan. This represents the negative aspect of the spiritual life.
As for the positive aspect of the spiritual life, it is the building of the self and the spirit through virtue, life with God, and tasting the Kingdom. Thus one tastes the love of God and enjoys fellowship with Him in a holy life…
He who makes his entire life a resistance to sin undoubtedly becomes very weary, because his life is wasted in struggle against sin, which Scripture says has “cast down many wounded, and all who were slain by her were strong” (Prov. 7:26), and in struggle against Satan, who is a harsh and evil enemy who does not show mercy. At the same time, he is experienced in the human soul over thousands of years; he knows its weaknesses and deficiencies, and he knows how to make it fall…
There is no doubt that this negative work is exhausting and difficult, and spending one’s life in it is a burden that may exceed what the soul can bear.
For the struggle against the spiritual hosts of wickedness is not easy, because although Satan has lost his former purity, innocence, and holiness, he has not lost his nature as an angel, with all the power and capabilities that belong to that nature…
What then? Should a person abandon this negative aspect? Should he stop resisting sin? Certainly not, for that would be surrender to it!
The Apostle rebukes such people, saying: “You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin” (Heb. 12:4).
Therefore, it is required of a person to resist Satan, sin, and the flesh with all his strength and with all the grace God has granted him, and to remain steadfast until the last breath of his life.
The question, however, is: Why is resisting sin difficult? Why did the Lord call it the narrow gate and the difficult way? (Matt. 7:13–14). And why did many of the Fathers say that the spiritual life begins with compulsion and the subjugation of the self?
It is difficult when it is devoid of positive action—when it is merely a struggle: “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another” (Gal. 5:17).
And why this struggle? Because the love of God has not entered the heart, nor has it yet become established. And how does the love of God enter the heart? It enters through positive action.
Hence the importance of positive action in the spiritual life. For without it, resisting sin becomes a difficult and bitter process, and perhaps also a losing one… And here we ask: Why does a person grow weary in his spiritual wars? Why does he swing so much between failure and success?
Because the love of God is not inside his heart. He is fighting from emptiness. He resists sin and then does not endure, because he does not possess the weapon with which to fight. He does not have the power by which to remain steadfast. Undoubtedly, the powerful weapon by which you overcome sin is the love of God, which makes you abhor sin and say: “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Gen. 39:9).
If the love of God enters your heart, sin will flee from it completely—this sin which you toil to resist, falling and rising many times without stability!
If the love of God enters your heart, you will feel no authority of sin over you. You will not need great effort to resist it, nor will you find within yourself this struggle between flesh and spirit, because by nature you will be repelled by sin. Likewise, Satan will find no place in you… As the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, said: “The ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me” (John 14:30).
At present, you need struggle against sin because within you are worldly desires that cause you to fall. There are desires in your heart that resist God. Therefore, when Satan comes to you, he finds the house adorned, furnished, and ready to receive him, so he enters with his helpers. Thus the desire of the spirit finds resistance within you from the desire of the flesh.
But if the love of God is in your heart, your house will be fortified against any sin, and it will find no ease whatsoever in breaking in.
Then you can sing with David the Prophet and say to your fortified self: “Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion! For He has strengthened the bars of your gates; He has blessed your children within you” (Ps. 147:12–13).
The love of God within you makes sin very weak in its attacks against you, because there is nothing within you that agrees with it…
The doors of your heart become closed to Satan; he cannot penetrate them with a blow from the left or a blow from the right.
The love within you fortifies your soul. This love gives birth within you to many sons, who are the fruit of the Spirit—virtues and works of righteousness.
Therefore, the psalmist does not say to your soul that God has strengthened the bars of your gates only from the negative aspect; rather, he also says from the positive aspect: “He has blessed your children within you.”
It is a comfortable, easy, and joyful struggle for the heart to engage in positive struggle for the knowledge of God and growth in His love. It is a struggle entirely different from the negative struggle of resisting sin and Satan.
The most delightful thing in the spiritual life is this positive action: tasting God and tasting the Kingdom, enjoying God and living with Him in the depth of His love… In it, you no longer suffer from spiritual wars nor from struggle against sin, because you no longer agree with it in your nature, and there is nothing within you that accepts it…
Do you think that a person falls into sin because sin is strong, temptations are severe, and Satan is full of schemes? No; rather, he falls mainly because his heart is empty of the love of God.
If he loves God, he will not find sin desirable at all, nor will he find it strong in its wars. Rather, he will see himself repelled by it, because it is exceedingly sinful and does not suit his pure nature.
And how does one reach this state?
He reaches it through positive spiritual action that leads him to the love of God. And the love of God makes him not sin, because “love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8). As Saint John the Apostle said: “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16), and “he cannot sin, because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9).
Therefore, try to fill your heart with the love of God. Then His love within you will be like a blazing fire, burning up all the desires of sin, all its effects, and all its thoughts.
So what is the positive action that leads you to all this?
Think much about God. Thinking about God gives birth to His love in your heart, and His love makes you think about Him even more. Each leads to the other and strengthens it…
If you abound in thinking about God—about His heaven and His angels, about His word and His commandments, about the blessed eternity with Him; if you abound in thinking about the beautiful attributes of God and His dealings with people—then you will become occupied with God. Your occupation with Him will make you think about Him even more, and your thinking about Him will increase your love for Him. Thus the cycle continues…
Thinking about God is the first positive action in your spiritual life—that is, to have God before you continually, remembering Him at all times, as David the Prophet said: “Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Ps. 119:97).
Thinking about God sanctifies your mind and gives birth in your heart to spiritual feelings. In all this, you become ashamed to think of anything wrong, and it does not become easy for you to mix your holy thoughts with any impure thought, or even any worldly thought. You are encouraged to continue in your divine contemplation.
Thinking about God leads you to purity of heart, because there is absolutely no fellowship between light and darkness (2 Cor. 6:14).
Here you become accustomed to prayer, and also to meditation and contemplation. You feel that you are continually in the presence of God.
In this divine presence, Satan does not dare to approach you; and if he approaches, he quickly leaves you, because he finds no place in you and does not find you available to him. He sees that your ways do not agree with his ways. Even if he wages war against you with something, his war is weak, because you are occupied with God…
Therefore, all of Satan’s warfare against you is focused on distancing you from being occupied with God, rather than openly fighting you with sin…
If Satan succeeds in distancing you from your positive work—which is being occupied with God—then he gradually takes another step and tries to cast you into negatives…
Even in that case, you will have acquired strength from your previous spiritual work by which you can resist Satan’s wars.
In such a case, Satan fights you while respecting you, fearing you, and guarding himself against you, so he does not descend upon you with all his weight.
But a person far from positive action is an easy prey for demons… They do not fear him, for they know that he has no inner strength to resist them.
We said that positive action includes the love of God, which comes through thinking about God, through meditation and contemplation, and through being occupied with God. What else?
Spiritual reading is very beneficial as a positive action that occupies the mind with God and also provides it with material for contemplation and prayer.
It reminds me of the offering of incense, which prepares the altar for the offering of sacrifices upon it.
Reading directs your mind into a spiritual atmosphere, reminds you of God and His saints. The word of the Lord is effective; it works within you, gives warmth to your spirituality, strongly urges you toward the way of the Lord. It also gives illumination to the mind, gives birth to spiritual feelings within you, and strengthens your resolve to walk in the way of God…
Like spiritual reading in its effectiveness are spiritual meetings, with all that they contain of prayers, readings, hymns, melodies, and a spiritual atmosphere beneficial for binding a person to God, in addition to the useful spiritual words they include.
All this places you in a spiritual environment in which Satan feels that he is a stranger…
Spiritual friendships are also very beneficial. They are among the positive works by which you strengthen your heart and draw it toward God.
Your spiritual friend is the one who, whenever you see him, you remember God and His commandments, you are reproved for your sins, and you take from him an example in a life of virtue.
Sin was not able to enter the life of Lot and his household when Lot was living with our father Abraham. But it found free entry when Lot moved away from this spiritual friendship and dwelt in Sodom, tormenting his righteous soul with the errors of its inhabitants.
Communion is among the most important positive actions, because of its deep effects on the soul and because it is always accompanied by repentance and confession.
The Lord Jesus Christ said of the one who partakes: “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56). We say in the prayers of the Divine Liturgy: “We partake of Your holy things for the purity of our souls, our bodies, and our spirits”…
So what do you gain from all this positive action?
And what about spiritual exercises by which you train yourself in the life of the Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit—exercises that occupy your mind every day with your eternity and all that it requires of works?
What also about self-examination and self-reproach for every deficiency and every fault?
And what about prostrations, fasting, and walking in the life of the Spirit…?
Through all this positive action, you establish balance within yourself between the influences of the world upon you and the spiritual influence.
But if Satan comes to fight you and finds around you no Gospel, no psalm, no prayer, no meditation, no spiritual contemplations, no meetings, no fasts, no prostrations, no confession, no communion… then what will be your state? How will you be able to resist sin without a weapon?!
You will then be like a city attacked by the enemy, with no army, no weapons, no fortifications…!
Take this as a rule and set it before you: every person whom you find fallen into sin must have passed through a period in which he was far from positive action—whether regarding the spiritual means, or regarding positive action in the life of virtue and the love of God…
Thus sin comes to him while he is unprepared, or while he is in a state of weakness or lukewarmness. See that the Lord said: “Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath” (Matt. 24:20).
“In winter” refers to a state of spiritual coldness, and “on the Sabbath” refers to a time when no work is done. Both remind us of distance from positive spiritual action…
Therefore, be vigilant in heart at all times. Let your lamp have oil. As the Lord said concerning this preparedness: “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning” (Luke 12:35).
Care for positive spiritual action that grants you strength to resist sin.
Fill your storehouses with spiritual provisions, so that the years of famine, with all their hunger and drought, may not prevail against you.
Keep your stone in your sling, so that if Goliath appears before you, you can advance to the battle line and say with confidence: “This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand” (1 Sam. 17:46).
Do not limit your struggle to resisting negatives alone, for that is a toilsome work. Rather, through positive action you gain the strength by which you can confront sin.
May the Lord be with you.
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