St. Anthony of Egypt (c 251 – 356), said, "As we rise daily, let us suppose we shall not survive till evening."

We wake up to a new day, what do we set out to do? What do we seek to accomplish? Whom do we seek to please?

This reminds me of a story from the Desert Fathers:

"Abbot Pambo to come down from the desert to Alexandria; and when he had come down, he saw there a woman that was an actress, and he wept. And when those who stood by asked him wherefore he had wept he spoke. "Two things," said he, "moved me. One, her perdition; the other, that I have not so much concern to please God as she hath to please vile men."

Tomorrow I am going to wake up and then what will I do with the day? Let me suppose that I will not survive till evening would I do anything different?

St. Anthony of Egypt said: "Whoever hammers a lump of iron first decides what he is going to make from it, a scythe, a sword, or an ax. Even so we ought to make up our minds about what kind of virtue we want to forge, or we labor in vain."

"...remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35)."

Why are we so self-centered ('me generation'), focusing only on our own needs, our own problems or sufferings? Even our Religion, worship, beliefs revolve around what we want or like. Is it Jesus that we worship or ourselves?

If the purpose of the Orthodox Tradition is to advance man in the unification with God, am I advancing? Am I becoming more 'like' Christ? Jesus is the head (Ephesians 4:15), we are His body (Colossians 1:18).

Jesus who came to "...to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed (Luke 4:18)." Is that what we are doing right along with Him? Are we seeking to heal the brokenhearted of those people in our lives or are we just seeking healing in our own self? Do we set our focus on the business of our Head (Colossians 3:1) or just ourselves...or better yet on just on those people that we like or who only do what we desire them to do?

Jesus gave us this commandment: "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another (John 13:34)." He doesn't say 'love yourself' or only love those that meet your approval.

The only thing needed is to unite ourselves with Christ, our Head, and go about His business loving those around us, healing the brokenhearted and giving mercy to all we come across. To do that we must put to death our self-centeredness, we must be humble. We must give instead of seeking to receive. Just think about all those around us we could be helping Jesus to 'set free' if we could only quit obsessing about ourselves. Lord help me a worthless sinner.

I was reading the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ (Luke 10:25-37) this morning & I was thinking about the Priest that passes the beaten man and doesn’t give him mercy. Let’s just say that the next week he comes across a prominent & wealthy Jewish man and gives him mercy; and the person he helps tells everyone in the Temple what a wonderful, kind, religious and righteous man he is.

Would he really be ‘righteous’ as everyone thought since he didn’t give mercy to everyone? Jesus said: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that (Luke 6:32-34).”

Jesus tells this parable because He is explaining the second ‘greatest commandment’ (love your neighbor as yourself – which later He gives a New Commandment – love your neighbor as God loves you) to someone that asked Him ‘who is my neighbor’? In other word – ‘just whom am I expected to give mercy to?’ As if we get to pick and choose whom we give mercy to (just as we do everyday). This man must have missed Jesus’ teaching:

“But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?” (Matthew 5:44-46)

After telling the parable about how the ‘religious’ people wouldn’t give mercy Jesus says:

“So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?”
And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Who will we have mercy on tomorrow? Who will we choose not to have mercy on?

We should never forget the words of Jesus: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy (Matthew 5:7)” and “For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you (Luke 6:38)”

Now let us ‘go and do likewise', giving mercy to all. True sons & daughters of our Father in heaven who causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

I have found myself spending more and more time on Facebook. Why? Frankly because at least it works. Sometimes it's such a hassle just to post to 360 Yahoo. They have promised a new product, but nothing seems to come. Nothing is ever fixed here or updated.

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