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Christ is in our midst, my dear readers!
Christ’s beloved disciple John the Theologian teaches us that earthly life makes us members of only one of two families. We become either children of God, or children of the devil. The Apostle says that only those who live according to truth and love are born of God. Truth without love is deformed into cruelty. And love without truth turns into the allowance of sin. God Himself is the source of Truth and Love. Therefore, those who follow Him become like Him. And the opposite is true—those who follow in the footsteps of the evil spirits are always liars and filled with hatred. This is because lies always lead to hatred. The father of lies is the devil, and everyone who serves him becomes a liar.
For the modern world, deception, lies, and fact spinning have become an everyday affair. The ability to lie so that it seems like the truth is a professional quality of many diplomats, politicians, and journalists in any country. Their slogan is: If you don’t lie, you won’t survive.
In order to hold to truth and love, we need faith. Those who don’t have it fall away from God. They are in no condition to pass the test of faithfulness. This can be seen very clearly in the example of the modern life of our Mother-Church. About those who have betrayed Her, the apostle John writes, They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us (1 Jn. 2:19). But the hardest thing is to preserve love in ourselves to the very death. When we begin to judge and be angry, we become children of the devil, because evil enters into our souls. Just look at how the Savior related to his betrayers and executioners. When Judas came to betray Him, Christ turned to him and called him, “friend”. When the Lord hung and suffered on the Cross, He prayed for his crucifiers to the Heavenly Father and said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
The world with its lies and hatred will someday cease to exist. But God always was, is, and will be. It depends upon our own choice alone whether we will share eternity with Christ, or be tormented with the devil. God wants to give us His Kingdom. And every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure (1. Jn. 3:3).
