Gospel commandments
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Back in the times of David and Isaiah, that is, during the times of the Old Testament, God brought the 10 commandments to people. They served to protect a person from evil, to make him understand all the danger that sin brings to people.
When Jesus Christ appeared on earth, he left the gospel law, which was based on love. The Lord himself showed exorbitant love for people and wanted them to live in love.
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another (John 13:34)
But He wanted people not only not to commit evil, but also to constantly improve and become like God:
Be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect (Mt 5:48)
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explained how a Christian should manage his earthly life, treat his neighbor and himself. The Savior did not cancel the 10 Old Testament commandments, but improved them, supplemented them with divine wisdom, and set a new goal for every person. By drawing closer to God, people can find true joy.
According to the 9 Beatitudes, simply giving up sin is not enough. You need to develop in yourself the virtues opposite to evil, do good and lead a highly moral spiritual life. These are the commandments that should be a guide for the Christian lifestyle of every Orthodox Christian:
- Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
- Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
- Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
- Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
- Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
- Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
- Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
- Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
- Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and slander you in every way unjustly because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven: just as they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Understanding the concept and looking for analogies
It is quite difficult for many people to understand what “spiritual poverty” is. We are accustomed to the fact that we need to strive for intellectual or spiritual wealth, education, and a broad outlook. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? The Holy Fathers suggest drawing an analogy with the beggars we see around us: these are people asking for alms, they cannot live without the help of others, they do not rely on their own strength and depend on the mercy of others. Spiritually, a poor person depends on God and His mercy. He knows that all his spiritual gifts are from God.
If a person takes a close look at himself, he will find that his actions are often insincere. It would seem that we are doing a good deed, but a desire for gratitude, respect, and praise creeps into our hearts. This happens because we do not possess those virtues that, according to the Creator’s original plan, a person should have. Feeling our poverty, realizing that it shouldn’t be this way, that we need to be different, we ask God for the missing virtues. This is the poverty of spirit.
Seventh Beatitude - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God
Another of the beatitudes is “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” This is a commandment in order to have peace with all people, and the reconciliation of all warring people is highly valued in the Holy Gospel.
Highly valued in the Holy Gospel is reconciliation with all people, reconciliation of all those at war. All this tells us another one of the beatitudes - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God
It is such people who are called sons of God. Why is this so?
Because we are all children of the Lord, creations of His hands. It’s so nice to see that everyone in the family lives peacefully, in love and harmony. And how, on the contrary, it is sad to see when there are quarrels and enmity between people close to each other.
Likewise, a person who maintains peace and tranquility in his family, who is reconciled with warring people, is pleasing to God and has a blessing from the Lord. Such a person will receive joy, peace and happiness in his soul from Him.
Very often the peacemakers themselves call themselves sons of God, because they are considered worthy of the very Son of God, the Savior, who reconciled all people with God.
Our guidelines
To whom are we more willing to give alms: to the one who deceives us, or to the one who is actually poor and needs our help? Of course, second. So is the Lord: with great joy and speed He helps those who sincerely consider themselves spiritually poor. Let us remember the Patriarch Abraham, who was the ancestor of all believers, the prophets Moses and David - these were people with special natural gifts, but they acquired grace-filled gifts through great humility.
Here, for example, are the words of King David: “But I am a worm, and not a man, a reproach among men and contempt among the people” (Ps. 21:7). In this row is our Lady Theotokos, Who said: “Behold, the Servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38), and the Lord Himself, Who said: “I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29) - and ascended to the Cross when He was spat on, beaten, scolded, mocked. With humility and meekness, He accepted everything that had to be done, everything for which He was sent to earth. These examples are our guidelines and our support.
How to acquire poverty of spirit?
Should we constantly flagellate and humiliate ourselves in order to achieve spiritual poverty? No, it is not necessary to do this, otherwise it may happen that outwardly we will present ourselves as humble in wisdom and poor in spirit, but in our souls we will be proud and vain of these “virtues.”
To achieve poverty of spirit, one must always avoid fame, exaltation, and gratitude. Try to deal with those who are higher than us in social status with meekness, with those who are equal to us with brotherly love, with those who are lower with condescension. Using these indicators, we can understand what our spiritual state is, whether we have succeeded in humility, which can be considered synonymous with poverty of spirit. Thanks to them, we can determine the point of spiritual development at which we are. And in order to move to a higher level, the Lord left us his sacraments. Looking at the highest landmarks in the person of the ascetics of our faith, we can repent and correct ourselves. In the sacraments, the Lord gives us His grace and with it fills everything we lack. The main thing is to have humility and ask Him for help.
Another of the Beatitudes: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Another of the beatitudes is: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. In this commandment, Jesus combines the concepts of beatitude and truth.
Here truth acts as a condition for human happiness. There are different ways to thirst and seek the truth. There are people who call themselves truth-seekers. They are constantly outraged by the rules, seek justice everywhere, write various complaints, and enter into constant conflicts.
But this commandment is not talking about these people.
The commandment clearly states that one must desire this truth, just as one must have food and water. That is, you need to desire very strongly, like a hungry person or like a thirsty person endures suffering until he satisfies his main need.
The Lord says:
inn 14, 6
“I am the way and the truth and the life.”
This is the truth we are talking about. The highest truth, Truth is Christ. This suggests that every Christian should look for the meaning of life only in God. Only in it is the true source of water and Divine bread, that is, the Body and Blood of Christ.
The Lord says: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” It is this truth that the commandment is talking about. The highest truth, Truth is Christ. This suggests that every Christian should look for the meaning of life only in God
The Lord left us his word, in which he outlined all the Divine teaching, the truth of God. He created the church and invested everything that a person needs to save his soul. Also, the temple is the bearer of truth and correct knowledge about God.
This is the kind of truth that every person should yearn for when reading the Holy Scriptures.
Is poverty of spirit a gift?
This is not a gift. We must acquire poverty of spirit. In essence, this is what our spiritual life consists of. To understand what poverty of spirit is, you need to consider its opposite - pride, when a person considers himself self-sufficient, virtuous, spiritually rich, and having deserved glory. An observant person knows that intelligence, fame, beauty, wealth are most often transitory things. The beautiful lose their beauty, the smart become stupid with age, those clothed with glory get sick and turn into their own opposite. A spiritual person can fall into delusion - consider himself a spiritual old man, supposedly leading disciples and admirers with him to the Kingdom of Heaven. All virtues are very fragile.
As soon as we begin to closely examine the qualities of our soul, the way of our thoughts and actions, we suddenly discover that, in fact, we do not possess either virtues, or holiness, or all those spiritual gifts that we like and value so much. This is especially noticeable when you manage to meet a person who is truly humble and poor in spirit. It is very easy and pleasant for us to be with him, because he does not boast, knows how to truly love, considers himself lower than others and does not condemn anyone for their words and actions. He is forgiving, meek and kind. In the Holy Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church we see many examples of the fact that all the saints who were awarded the gifts of the Holy Spirit and could heal, work miracles, and pray, first acquired poverty of spirit. They asked God for it, and He, out of His love, gave it to them.
Poverty of spirit is impossible without sincerity before God
We must understand that we can only strive for the ideal. The Holy Fathers say that it will not be possible to achieve it, and this is normal: the higher a person rises in his spiritual development, the better he sees his imperfection. On the other hand, the Lord sometimes allows falls, even for those people who had certain spiritual gifts. A person, even having acquired some virtues, still remains changeable; he does not occupy spiritual heights once and for all. The wise fathers of our Church knew this.
The Monk Macarius the Great told a story about how one elder, possessing the gift of healing, helped the sick by simply laying his hands on them. The fame about him became great, and he felt that he was perishing, because the fame became pleasant to him. As a person with poverty of spirit, he asked the Lord for a demon to take possession of him. God allowed this, the elder became possessed, he was even chained. His glory was destroyed, but he himself was healed, after which he continued his spiritual ascent.
We must understand that humility and humility are different concepts. Humility is when we understand how to live and act correctly, and humility is a practice. Most often we do not have humility, we simply encourage ourselves to do the right thing, but we stumble, repent, and move on. Sincerity before God consists in adequately assessing yourself and your actions. The more objectively and wisely we approach this, the more we see our sins and the less our virtues. We realize that there are attempts to acquire them, there are good aspirations, but there are few achievements. Sometimes we try to embrace the whole world, we take on an unbearable burden, under which our knees immediately give way - because we value ourselves above the merits that we have. But this has its advantages: in this way poverty of spirit is acquired.
So, let’s summarize: in order to acquire poverty of spirit, you must always have spiritual standards before you - Christ, the Most Holy Theotokos, the apostles, the saints. We need to know what prevents us from being like them: it can be fame, pride, pride - everything that comes to the detriment of our spiritual beauty. Finally, one should identify the virtues in which one must grow. The works of the holy fathers will be very helpful on this path. Since the Beatitudes are the foundation of all virtues, there are a lot of such works. Anyone who wants to understand them or study them in more detail will find ones that suit his mind and heart. You need to start reading, and if you are hooked, if you don’t want to close the book, then this is what you need.
Archpriest Vitaly Vorona
