I often blog about the struggle between living the Orthodox Christian way of life, and the worldly way of life. Some people ask me why I ‘always’ point out the evil in the world. It has been suggested that I blog too much doom and gloom. I won’t deny it because it is true. Be Transfigured Ministries was created to inspire us to live a NEW life in Christ, but how will we ever want a NEW life if we love the old one so much?
It is becoming more obvious that the secular world is departing rather quickly from the moral standards of Christianity. We should not be surprised. For millennia the world has fought against God. There have been eras of better and worse moral standards in this ever-swinging pendulum. As modern Orthodox Christians, having grown up in a world ‘more or less’ supportive of Christian morals, witnessing the recent move away from God can cause great anxiety. The good news is, the Church has dealt with it before, and it can deal with it again.
Today is the Feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, the Mother of God, the New Eve. From her, God received flesh and became a man. From her, we have received our salvation. Thus, we pray, “Most Holy Theotokos, save us!” She isn’t our savior, but she gave birth to our savior. That makes her (in my opinion) second best thing. Without her, God would not have had flesh through which He saved us.
When I established Be Transfigured Ministries, I considered the many Orthodox Christians I had encountered over the years. Many were faithfully attending Church services, but their hearts were numb to the beauty of the Church. They had grown up obedient to their grandmothers, but never knew ‘why we do what we do’ as Orthodox Christians. Because of this their Christian life had been reduced to going through the motions.
It is a daily question that creates a drive in us to get out of bed and take on the challenges of a new week. Mondays have the potential for stress or joy. We often engage each Monday morning with the stress of what “has to be accomplished” before another weekend. Today, being a holiday, we can enjoy a bit of reflection, “What brings us joy?”
Sometimes in life we have to change the way we look at things. This is true not only in the arrangement of furniture in the Den, but our spiritual lives and September is an excellent opportunity to do this. When we look differently at our furniture sometimes we see things we never noticed before; and sometimes this can be a scratch in the sofa or a stain in the carpet. Whenever we take the chance to look at things from a different angle we are able to improve and sometimes repair that which is damaged.
When we read from the Old Testament as Orthodox Christians, it can be a bit confusing at times. Maybe it is because it was written so long ago that we have forgotten the context in which the books were written. Maybe it is because it was written in a language we do not speak, then translated into a language we do not speak, then handed down for generations using hand-written scrolls that were often lost. These are all true, but they lie beyond our control, so I think there is a more significant reason because it is in our total control.
There is an old song that I grew up hearing which includes the phrase, “Saint Peter don’t you call me ‘cause I can’t go.” If you know the song, you know the reason the writer can’t die quite yet. It doesn’t really matter what reason we give, we all at live with this thought. We live no ready for Christ to come but come He will.
Over the centuries people have taken advantage of fear tactics to spread false predictions about the return of Christ. Thousands of pages have probably been written describing in details various end of times prophecies. As of today, none have come true. This is both a good thing and a bad thing.
By my estimation there are over one thousand Orthodox Christian Churches in the United States when you combine all jurisdictions within the Canonical Orthodox Church. That means there are over one thousand opportunities for the Church to be a daily blessing to the people of our nation, whether they are Orthodox Christians or not since God is the God of everyone.
