The Place of God in Your Life
The lecture speaks about the place of God in the human heart, and whether God is everything in a person’s life or merely one part among many things occupying the heart and mind. His Holiness Pope Shenouda III explains that Adam’s fall began when other things entered his heart beside God, such as the love of knowledge, self-love, and bodily desires, so God was no longer everything to him.
He explains that a person needs to examine his relationship with God: Is God merely a means to achieve desires and needs, or is He the true purpose of life? Some people seek God’s gifts more than seeking God Himself, while the true relationship is for a person to long for God Himself and consider Him the Father, the Friend, the Beloved, and everything in his life.
The lecture also confirms that knowing God is not merely intellectual knowledge, because even demons believe in God, but the important thing is to have a relationship of love, fellowship, and true communion with Him. God is not a distant idea in heaven, but a living presence inside the heart that a person feels and experiences in daily life.
The lecture presents spiritual examples such as Abraham, who left everything for God, as well as monks and martyrs who made God the only one in their lives. It calls the person to test himself: Can he leave something for God? And does he give God the priority in his time, thoughts, and heart?
It also explains that outward worship alone is not enough, because a person may pray, fast, or go to church without having a true relationship with God. Therefore, His Holiness Pope Shenouda III calls for a deep relationship of love in which a person feels a continual longing for God and says with Him: “My Beloved is mine and I am His.”
At the end of the lecture, he connects the love of God with true freedom, because when a person becomes free from attachment to people, things, and desires, and makes God everything in his life, he gains inner peace and true spiritual freedom. Then nothing in the world can control him or separate him from the love of Christ.
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