“You cannot do anything without Me”: How to love Christ?

Gospel according to John 15:5

I am the vine, and you are the branches; He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing

The Lord Jesus Christ told His disciples that the one who would betray Him had already drawn near, that the Son of Man was being delivered into the hands of sinners, to death, that His apostles would be rejected. What did His disciples answer? “We will never, never leave, never turn away from You!” And the holy Apostle Peter spoke most fervently. He passionately loved the Lord Jesus Christ with all his heart. Look what the Lord answered: The rooster will not crow twice before you deny Me three times (Mark 14:30). And so it was: the holy Apostle Peter rejected the Lord Jesus Christ.

Why did this happen, why the fall of the apostle, why these words of the Lord? In order to eradicate our self-conceit in the apostles, and then in all of us people. For the apostles relied entirely on their love for Christ, on their ardent faith in Him. They were rejected, everyone fled when they came to arrest the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord disgraced their conceit, and through them he teaches us to never have conceit. The Lord spoke earlier to the apostles, and through them to all of us: Without Me you can do nothing . He put His great teaching into these words. Without the Lord we cannot do anything.

If nothing else, did they really not do great and glorious things without the Lord Jesus? Were there few people and nations who did not confess the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet they did many great and glorious deeds?

Yes, they did great and glorious things, they did without the Lord Jesus. What fate befell these affairs? These things collapsed. There was a great Assyro-Babylonian kingdom that ruled the universe. Where is this kingdom? A long time ago, an infinitely long time ago, it collapsed, and its glory disappeared, its great deeds were forgotten.

There was a great and glorious state of Rome, which dominated the entire world of that time, conquering the whole earth, and the glory of Rome was immeasurable. Where is the Roman Empire now? Rome collapsed, just as the kingdom of Assyro-Babylon collapsed earlier.

And now, before our eyes, another great empire collapsed, which built the great edifice of its state without God, was guided by immeasurable cruelty, treated all other people with contempt, wanting to rule the world. The great creation of the German people collapsed with thunder and drowned in streams of blood. You see how human affairs collapse, which are not built on the cornerstone, which are built without faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, His gracious help. These things are collapsing, collapsing one after another.

This is how it was and how it will always be in the affairs of individual people. Many unbelievers, who do not even know the Lord Jesus Christ, many pagans, Muslims, Jews achieve prosperity for a while, only for a while, and then everything collapses. Without the Lord Jesus Christ, according to His Holy Word, we cannot create anything. But these words of Christ, to a much greater extent than to worldly matters, to matters of state, relate to matters of faith, to the individual, to matters of good. We must always remember that not a single good deed is accomplished by our own strength, we receive everything good from God, everything good is done by the power of the Lord. Remember Him, bless Him, thank Him. This must be remembered first of all.

We should not consider our good deeds to be ours, we should not be proud of our good deeds, we should not even remember them - we should forget them. We must immediately forget about the good deeds we have done, for we must feel like slaves who are obliged to do the will of their master, and our Master is the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have done any good, fulfilled His will, you must forget about it, saying: I am a slave; fulfilled what he had to do (Luke 17:10). We should never count or remember our good deeds. They must think about the fact that they did not do what they should have done.

Yesterday I read to you the words of St. Ephraim the Syrian: “You have heard that we should always invite the unfortunate who do not have bread to eat with us, we should dine in the company of the poor.” We never do this. Rarely, rarely does someone who comes by chance dine with us, whom we accept out of duty of hospitality. If we feed one wanderer and take him in, we will remember this for a long time.

We must remember something else - that we are not fulfilling what Ephraim the Syrian says. We could do infinitely more good, and then, having fulfilled it, we should say that we are inexorable slaves, having done only what we had to do. May the Lord save us from all conceit, from attributing good deeds to ourselves!

All the good that we do, we do only by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, to Him be glory and power forever and ever!

Hurry to follow Christ. To the words: “Without Me you cannot do anything.”

“You cannot do anything without Me”: How to love Christ?

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Message to the flock of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) and members of the temporary Patriarchal Holy Synod. July 16/29, 1927

By God's grace! (he wrote this about the NKVD!)

Humble Sergius, Metropolitan of Nizhny Novgorod, Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens, and the Temporary Patriarchal Holy Synod - to your Eminence archpastors, God-loving shepherds, honest monks and all the faithful children of the Holy All-Russian Orthodox Church to “rejoice in the Lord.”

Now our Orthodox Church in the Union has not only canonical, but also, according to civil laws, completely legal central government; and we hope that legalization will gradually spread to our lower church administration: diocesan, district, etc.

Let us offer our prayers of thanksgiving to the Lord, who has been so kind to our Holy Church. Let us publicly express our gratitude to the Soviet government for such attention to the spiritual needs of the Orthodox population, and at the same time we assure the government that we will not use the trust placed in us for harm.

In this situation, the question of the clergy who went abroad with the emigrants becomes especially acute. The blatant anti-Soviet speeches of some of our archpastors and pastors abroad, which greatly harmed relations between the Government and the Church, as is known, forced the late Patriarch to abolish the Synod abroad (May 5 / April 23, 1922). But the Synod still continues to exist, without changing politically, and recently, with its claims to power, it has even split the foreign church society into two camps. To put an end to this, we demanded that the clergy abroad give a written pledge of complete loyalty to the Soviet government in all their public activities. Those who have not given such an obligation or who have violated it will be expelled from the clergy under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. We think that by demarcating ourselves, we will be protected from any surprises from abroad. On the other hand, our resolution may make many people think whether it is time for them to reconsider the issue of their relationship to Soviet power, so as not to break with their native Church and Motherland. link to istmat.info

-the first hierarch of the ROCOR imposed an ANATHEMA on the disguised GBNIH demons from the ROC MP - on the LUBYANKIN “Priests”, a gathering of parasites, pedophiles, and pederasts selling weapons, prostitutes, and drugs. .

This is so that no one would have such questions, but why were they EXCLUDED FROM THE CHURCH. In fact, the Sergian heretics organized a CHURCH SCHIPT, just as now the Uinate heretics organized a CHURCH SCHIPT in Ukraine.

NOTHING

(
simple
ne-, -chevo, -cheva) and ◄ (
slav.
)
NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING
.
I. places neg. 1. The same as nothing
(2).
God created everything out of nothing, but you, the Disastrous Alchemist, make nothing out of everything. Note Ved. 1731 139. Although the Monads in the consideration of magnitude are complete nothingness, ... according to their own "Monadists" recognition, many nothingnesses taken together can produce a body. Euler PP II 220. | In the last
It swelled up like a water bubble, but it burst and became nothing. Brsv Last 17.

2.
The same as nothing
(3). And what he himself is ignorant of, he reveals to others, Everything is disgusting to him, a hunter of everything And in a word: Carminative .. straight nothing. N. Emn Rose 95. [Prolaz:] Hitherto I served the Professor of Morals; Although he is a professor, there is nothing in front of you. Prince Miracle. 10. <> N. to whom, for whom, for what. A simple heart, a feeling, Nothing for the world. MF VIII 170.

II.
adv. 3. It doesn’t matter; it doesn’t mean anything;
not significant, not important. You can lose up to a hundred rubles or more at cards in one night, that’s nothing;
and for the redemption of prisoners... - I’m sorry for even a ruble. Tikhon 3. 68. [Rhyme grip:] Is this girl your maid's lady? [Novomodova:] The chambermaid, however, this is nothing; if you want, she can be a good match for you. Wing. Writer 185. I grabbed my hat and began to apologize. "Nothing! Nothing! the owner told me.” Krm. PRP II 147. <> N. to whom. [Domosedov:] What do you want? It’s all nothing to you: you can win back and lose in one day. Conspiracy 20. ◊ No n. Es soll nichts.. there is nothing. VL 584. We will remain friends; and it’s nothing that you scolded me. Alive 246. [Andrey:] What have I done! Forgive me Luka .. [Luke:] Well, there’s nothing: between friends it’s considered nothing. Court. name day 47. || without
predicate. to whom.
It costs nothing, it’s not difficult, it’s possible, it’s accessible.
I read to him “the Emperor” for two hours, many chapters from the mentioned book... At the same time, he deigned to say to me: such a chest! No matter how long you read, you don’t care. Zap. Por. 158. <> with inf. [Falaley:] Yes, this mother is idle, it’s nothing for our brother to take off; I’m not even going to jump off from there. Hike 16.

4.
Not at all, not at all.
But others who are outside the number of Christ’s servants do not hope for anything good after death. Prkp. CP III 86. Live godly, ... do not violate anything of my will. Pssh. Will 172. There was no rain. Scrap. SS I 316. The Berezovka “boat”, in terms of the position of its actual cargo, carried almost nothing, and when sailing it was lighter than all the ships. Crush. OZK I 159. ◊ N. did not happen. [Servant:] He made a mistake: he is taking the pies to the wrong place. [Vostryakov:] Nothing happened; I took it where it belonged. Lefty Servant 149.