🇬🇧 Glory be to Jesus Christ! 🌞
A continuation of yesterday’s reading
with the omission of two verses (Colossians II, 21-22), about which see
the link:
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/
The Apostle Paul, as in other places, says that Christians die to sin in order to live for God – and this is the only way to be truly free from sin (as he says in other places).
Thinking about the heavenly and high things in Christ is intended to elevate the mind, to transform it into the image of the mind of God, when the sins of the world do not surround and embrace the mind, but it rises above them up to God, to God’s prepared purity and clarity. This is possible in a miraculous way, through God’s manifestations and revelations, but mostly it happens in the cooperation of God’s will and grace in everything – in cooperation with God for the salvation of oneself and others.
I wrote about the parallel passage to the first part
of the reading (Matthew VI, 22-23) here:
https://oleksandr-zhabenko.github.io/uk/Matthew6.html
I quote here:
Here, in view of the above, we can say that by eye is meant the
purpose for which a person does something, and by vision is meant the
process of motivation. Then what has been said also has the following
meaning: if the goal is right, if the motivation is right, for the sake
of God, then what you do will be directed correctly – towards God and
will be right, even righteous. If the goal and motivation are wrong,
then everything will be wrong. It is also easier to control the goal and
motivation than the whole activity, which depends on many factors. It’s
easier to steer the rudder than the whole ship.
In general, it is widely understood that the eye is the mind.
If the mind is pure, and this is possible when the heart is purified by the action of God’s grace, then a person will see everything in God’s presence, in God, which is called light here. It is even possible to see the gracious light, the light of Tabor, the light of the Transfiguration, but not necessarily so. And if the mind is impure, or even worse, darkened by passions and sins, mistakes and negligence, unrepentance, and so on, then a person cannot really see God’s presence in life, in the world, cannot interact with God properly, remaining in that state, and this is figuratively called spiritual darkness, which also makes it easier for evil spirits to come to a person. Then everything bad can become part of a person’s life.
There is a lot of material on almsgiving from the inner being at the
link and other references cited therein to the parallel passage in
Matthew (Matthew XXIII, 25), as well as other parallel passages:
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/
Glory be to Thee, our God, glory be to Thee!
Source:
31102023.html