The Spiritual Servant

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The Spiritual Servant

• Orthodox Spirituality

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• Spirituality in the Orthodox Church means the
  everyday activity of life in communion with God.
  The term spirituality refers not merely to the
  activity of man's spirit alone, his mind, heart
  and soul, but it refers as well to the whole of
  man's life as inspired and guided by the Spirit
  of God.

• This means that all that a person thinks, says
  and does must be inspired and guided by the Holy
  Spirit so that the will of God the Father might
  be accomplished as revealed and taught by Jesus
  Christ the Son of God.

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• ... whatever you do, do all to the glory of God
  (1 Cor 1031).

• Doing all things to the glory of God is the
  meaning and substance of life for a human being.
  This "doing" is what Christian spirituality is
  about.

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God The Father

• Christian spirituality is centred in God its
  very goal is communion with God, which is
  attainable through the accomplishment of His
  will.

• To be what God wants us to be and to do what God
  want us to do is the sole meaning of our human
  existence.

• In the Old Testament law, it is written I am the
  Lord your God consecrate yourselves therefore,
  and be holy, for I am holy (Lev 1144).

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• In the New Testament, the first letter of Saint
  Peter refers to this fundamental command of' God.
  
• ... as He who called you is holy, be holy
  yourself in all your conduct since it is
  written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy
• (1 Pet 116).

• All are "called to be saints" (Rom 17)

• "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your
  heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 548).

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• The teaching that man must be holy and perfect
  like God Himself through the accomplishment of
  the will of God is the central teaching of the
  Orthodox Christian faith.

• "Man is called to become by divine grace all that
  God Himself is by nature."

• As God is holy, man must be holy. As God is
  perfect, man must be perfect, pure, merciful,
  patient, kind, gentle, free, self-determining,
  ever-existing.

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Jesus Christ

• Christian spirituality is centred in Christ.
  Jesus Christ is the divine Son of God who was
  born as a man of the Virgin Mary in order to give
  man eternal life in communion with God His
  Father.

• The goal of human life is to be continually "in
  Christ." When one is "in Christ," according to St
  John, one does God's will and cannot sin.

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• away sins, and in Him there is no sin. No one who
  abides in Him sins no one who sins has either
  seen Him or knows Him. ... he who does right is
  righteous, as He is righteous. ... No one born of
  God commits sin for God's nature abides in him,
  and he cannot sin because he is born of God. By
  this it may be seen who are the children of God,
  and who are the children of the devil whoever
  does not do right is not of God, nor he who does
  not love his brother (1 Jn 34-10).

• Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in me
  will also do the works that I do and greater
  works than these will he do, because I go to the
  Father (Jn 1412).

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The Holy Spirit

• Spiritual life is life in and by the Holy Spirit
  of God.

• If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will
  pray the Father, and He will give you another
  Comforter to be with you forever. The Spirit of
  Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it
  neither sees Him nor knows Him but you know Him,
  for He dwells with you and will be in you (Jn
  1415-17).

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• But you have been anointed by the Holy One and
  you know all things ... and the unction chrisma
  you have received from Him abides in you ... His
  anointing teaches you about everything and is
  true and is no lie, just as it has taught you,
  abide in Him. ... And by this we know that He
  abides in us, by the Spirit which He has given
  us. ... By this we know that we abide in Him
  and He in us, because He has given us of His own
  Spirit (1 Jn 220-27, 324, 413).

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• been given to us. ... Any one who does not have
  the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. But if
  Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead
  because of sin, your spirits are alive because of
  righteousness. If the Spirit of Him who raised
  Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised
  Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your
  mortal bodies also through His Spirit which
  dwells in you ... for if you live according to
  the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you
  put to death the deeds of the body, you will
  live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God
  are sons of God (Rom 55, 81ff cf. 1 Cor 2, 6,
  12-14 Gal 5).

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MAN

• Man, according to the scriptures, is created "in
  the likeness of God" (Gen 126-27).

• To be like God, through the gift of God, is the
  essence of man's being and life.

• In the scriptures it says that God breathed into
  man, the "breath or spirit of life" (Gen 27).

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• For man to fulfil himself as created in the image
  and likeness of God -- that is, to be like Christ
  who is the perfect. divine, and uncreated Image
  of God -- man must be the temple of God's Spirit.

• The Orthodox spiritual tradition interprets the
  "two ways" of the Mosaic law

• I call heaven and earth to witness against you
  this day, that I have set before you life and
  death, blessing and curse, therefore choose life
  that you and your descendants may live, loving
  the Lord, obeying His voice and cleaving to Him,
  for that means life to you (Dt 3019-20).

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• For I delight in the law of God in my inmost
  self, but I see in my members another law at war
  with the law of my mind and making me captive to
  the law of sin which dwells in my members. ...
  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
  has set me free from the law of sin and death.
  ... For those who live according to the flesh
  set their minds on the things of the flesh, hut
  those who live according to the Spirit set their
  minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the
  mind on the Spirit is life and peace (Rom
  714-817).

• Christian spiritual life depends on the conscious
  choice of the "way of life." To "choose life" and
  to walk in the "way of life" is the way that man
  shows himself to be in the image and likeness of
  God.

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GOD is LOVE

• According to the Christian faith "the greatest
  virtue is love" (I Corinthians 1313) Love is the
  "fulfilling of the law" of God. (Romans 1310)
  For God Himself is Love.

• Beloved, let us love one another for love is of
  God, and he who loves is born of God and knows
  God.

• He who does not love does not know God for God
  is love.

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• Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to
  love one another. No man has ever seen God if we
  love one another, God abides in us and His love
  is perfected in us.

• We love, because He first loved us. (I John
  47-19)

• Man's love has its origin in God. God's love
  always comes first. Men are to love God and one
  another because God Himself has loved first.

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• The first definition of love as agape is love as
  the action of perfect goodness for the sake of
  the other. This is the most basic meaning of
  love to do everything possible for the
  well-being of others. God Himself has this love
  as the very content of His being and life, for
  "God is agape." It is with this love that
  spiritual persons must love first of all.