The Positive Element in the Spiritual Life
The Positive Element in the Spiritual Life
In our spiritual life there are two important matters. One of them is resisting sin: resisting the devil and resisting stumbling blocks and lusts, and man’s attempt to purify his heart and his mind, and to purify his body and his senses. It is a life of struggle between the spirit and the flesh.
As for the second matter, it is positive: it is the love of God, the building up of the spirit, and the tasting of the Kingdom.
In this lecture, we would like to explain the importance of this positive element in the spiritual life.
The one whose entire spiritual life is merely resistance to sin becomes weary, because his life is lost in a struggle, in a war with a powerful enemy…
The devil is crafty in evil. As the serpent was more cunning than all the beasts of the field, so the devil has deep experience with the human soul. For more than 7000 years he has been fighting man and testing him. He knows the weaknesses of this soul and the doors through which he enters. Therefore, the struggle with him is not easy…
It is a struggle—as the Apostle Paul said—not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual hosts of wickedness (Eph. 6), against the “ruler of the darkness.”
The devil is strong. Therefore it was said about sin in the Book of Proverbs that it “has cast down many wounded, and all who were slain by her were strong men” (Prov. 7:26).
Thus the war with the devil is unbalanced. It is a war between a man of dust, attached to matter, and a strong spirit in battle.
The devil is an angel. Although in his fall he lost his purity and holiness, he did not lose his nature and his power.
Therefore, we read in the story of Job that he performed dangerous acts: he brought fire down from heaven that burned the sheep and the servants, he stirred up a wind that demolished the house, and he struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head…
How difficult is the war with this devil…
The negative war is difficult. Truly, miserable is that man who spends his life in struggle with the devil: he rises only to fall, and as soon as he rises he falls again; as soon as he triumphs in one battle, another battle confronts him, and so on without end…
But how delightful is the positive spiritual work! It is the tasting of God, companionship with Him and enjoyment of it, and friendship with Him: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
Why does a person grow weary in his spiritual wars?
He grows weary if the love of God is not present in his heart.
If the love of God enters the heart, then sin disappears from it.
The sin which you were weary in resisting ends immediately and no longer has authority over you, because the love of God has expelled it.
If the love of God fills your heart, you find no place for sin within you. Then you chant the beautiful song of David: “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.”
Here the person is fortified; his gates are strongly closed against the demons, who cannot penetrate him, whether by a blow from the left or a blow from the right. Divine love fortifies the human soul and strengthens the bars of its gates.
Every devil that wars against this soul finds no entrance through which to enter it, because it is a city fortified by the love of God, and the Holy Spirit works within it.
Thus the joyful and comfortable struggle is that a person strives to obtain the love of God and to grow in it. But the weary struggle is the struggle to abandon sin. His love inherently includes the abandonment of sin.
We ask: Why does a person fall into sin? Is it because sin is strong, or because stumbling blocks are tempting, or because the devil is cunning and experienced? Or is it because of all these together? Perhaps…
But the first cause of sin is the heart’s lack of the love of God. He who loves God does not sin. As the Lord said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My commandments.” The one who loves God—if sin is presented to him—says, “How can I sin and do this great evil before God?!”
The Scripture spoke the truth when it said, “Love never fails.”
Try to fill your heart with the love of God; then this love will be like a blazing fire that devours all that is within you of sin and lust.
How to Love God:
Think much about God and occupy yourself with Him. The one who loves someone is always thinking of him and caring about him.
Love and thinking are two things, each of which strengthens the other.
If you love God, you will think of Him and be occupied with Him; and if you think of Him and occupy yourself with Him, you will love Him.
Is it not painful that God should wander as a stranger on earth, “having nowhere to lay His head”?! Whenever He knocks on a heart or a mind, He finds it occupied with others: with the world, with people, with matter…
Train yourselves to be occupied with God, and let everything appear trivial in your eyes, so that God may be at the summit of your interests and in their depth; indeed, that He may be all in all, with nothing competing with Him in your heart or your mind.
But if your heart is attached to the world, then when the devil comes to it, he finds the house adorned and furnished before him, and he dwells in it.
Do not let the scale of the world outweigh in your thoughts, and do not let your spiritualities be placed merely on the upper side of the balance. Rather, be always thinking of the Lord. Then your thought will be sanctified by its divine depth, and it will be ashamed of the path of sin; and you will also find your feelings clinging to the Lord, and your love for Him will be exalted.
The devil comes and does not find you free for him, so he leaves you and departs.
Try to have friendship and fellowship with the Lord. All those who had fellowship with the Lord and befriended Him found sin weak before them.
The majority of those who fell did so during a period in which they neglected their connection with God. When the devil fought them, they found around them neither psalm nor Gospel nor prayer. They found nothing to repel him from that former love of God. Therefore, rightly did the Lord say to the angel of the Church of Ephesus, rebuking him for his fall: “I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (Rev. 2:4).
The stronger your connection with God becomes, the weaker the war that the enemy stirs up against you will be, and it will not have the same effect. Therefore, the most important thing the devil attempts is to separate you from God and to occupy you with matters that distance you from the Lord, so that he may have you to himself.
The most difficult thing is to fight sin during periods of spiritual lukewarmness or coldness. For this reason the Lord said, “Pray that your flight may not be in winter.”
Occupy your mind before the devil occupies it, using the method that prevention is better than cure. In your spiritual wars, use the method of attack instead of continually taking the position of defense.
Sometimes a counterattack is the strongest method of defense.
Do not leave yourself for the devil to impose upon you his thoughts, his lusts, and his tricks, while you merely cry out and resist. Rather, fortify yourself with the love of God. Attack, and shatter the power of the devil through your sweet fellowship with God.
Occupy your time and your heart with divine love, with worship, and with service. You will find that the course of your emotions has been directed upward, and sin will no longer find within you something similar to it that draws you toward it.
The monastic fathers who occupied their time with prayer, meditation, spiritual readings, hymns, praises, prostrations, and manual labor took from the devil a position of attack, not defense—through positive work.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – in Al-Keraza Magazine – Year Seven (Issue Forty-Six) – 12-11-1976.
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