Great video Father. Too many churches focus too much on social issues and politics. I was raised Catholic, married Lutheran and I went through as you call it, my angry atheism phase and I'm so thankful that the Holy Spirit guided me to my local Orthodox Church here in Hagerstown, MD over a year ago.
I didn't know they had a church in Hagerstown. I stop there once a year usually on my way to Ocean City. Great town. The part I stayed in once was a bit rough, though 😅
How does his advice of never getting involved in anything actually change that? How does the Orthodox worldview shine if you shut up, mind your own business and let evil prevail because we're just passing through this world? I'm not talking about building some sort of Christian utopia like some heretics teach, but what this guy is feeding you sounds more like Jehovah's Witness ideology than actual Orthodoxy, which has never been against the cooperation of Church and State. Rights weren't always talked about because they generally didn't exist in the ancient world, and you didn't get the choice to vote at all. God teaches us to be content in our current circumstances, so in a sense, they're not the most important aspect of salvation. It's fine to talk about so-called rights that aren't actually Christian, how "sacred cows," on the political Right and Left aren't Christian and similar ideas, but the idea that you shouldn't worry about rights at all is quite frankly, ignorant. You want the right to be able to go to the Divine Liturgy and worship God and not have your children taken away for teaching them Christian Truths? Oh who cares, we're not supposed to stand up for silly rights or even against evil! Stick your head in the sand and pray some more. This isn't the Orthodox worldview and sounds like NOTHING that comes from the first 1000 years of the Church. This sounds more like cowardice that doesn't want to directly offend conservatives or liberals, so he would rather avoid certain truths and tell everyone to stop thinking about politics and the world around you entirely.
Indeed, our "wanter" must be conformed to Christ, i.e., our will wholly in submission to and aligned with God's will = one will, not many wills. Thank you for another good post, Fr Paul.
I believe God really wanted me to see this message today, the last few days I’ve heard things from people that genuinely bothered me, and I wondered how people could think that way, but hearing this has helped ease my mind
Impromptu video format is also good! Thank you for the edifying words! With a politically active spouse this is something my soul needed to hear today.
So ABSOLUTELY spot on! We have believed ALL WRONG that Earth is our home. Why do we believe such nonsense when JesusCHRIST DIRECTLY told us "...skies and Earth will pass away but My(Christ) WORDS will not..." where on this sentence doesJesus say for us to make our life confortable on this planet?!? He also told us He was "nomad" on His journey, His mission to Glorify GOD. He also mentions multiple times secure a place in Heaven, e.g. "... let the dead bury the dead, and Follow Me", then also the ver poor Lazarus and the rich-man parable, then "...the house of My Father has many rooms...I go prepare a room for you...", to mention just some. Where in any of these do we get the "idea", planet Earth is "my home" ?!? Evil always AIMS malevolently to DECEIVE us, to TRICK, FOOL our small mindsets by PUTTING the most either "stupid, perveted or destructive" evil-led ideas/thoughts/reasonings/faulty-logic/fantasies into our brains in an INTENSIVE COMPELLING FORCEFUL manner but CHRIST also WARNED us about this and ASKED us to be on the ALERT, to "... NOT BE DECEIVED..." (certainty, because "many will come in His Name" to DECEIVE, PLANT evilseeds of DELUSION, forcing us to BELIEVE WRONG THINGS, that mere evil-led FALSEHOODS. The aim ofevil KEEPS being the same TURNA ALL HUMANS into SELFISH/NARCISSISTIC CREATURES THAT OFFEND GOD AND REJECT HIS KIND LOVE BY DECEIVING US C O N S T A N T LY, FOOLING US AROUND with stupid destructive ideas, theories, self-opinions, etc., and LAUGHS at our continuous gullibility to FALL for evil's deceit, seduction, charm, DEATHTRAP by making us FORGET Love, Peace, Mercy, Life in full WELLBEING with GOD, which is TRUE HAPINESS but ONLY in Heaven. Planet Earth is full of thousands possibly millions or trillions of viruses and other pathogens (all evil, all desteuctive of life) that AIM at the destruction of GODs Creation. Without GODs very KIND, MERCIFUL blessing we are "no more", because we have NO CAPACITY neither mentally let aline physically to SUSTAIN these continuos constant, now INTENSIFIED, evilattacks UNLESS WE KEEP PRAYING/ASKING GOD❤/JESUS❤ foe HELP. Thank you once more fr. Paul, may GOD❤ always keep blessing you and the ALL the work you do to keep us focused ONLY on the WORDS OF TRUTH AND LIFE, as dear JesusCHRIST told us about!!
Rights tend to be self-centered while duties and responsibilities tend to be other-centered. However, to fulfill duties and responsibilities, one must give up a measure of self in order to be humble.
Father, I love your videos. I’ve watched and shared many of them in hopes others will discover The Church and come home to it like I did twenty years ago (after 16 years raised in the Church of Rome followed by 9 years searching for The Truth and The Way.). I ask this with all humility because I want to understand, especially since sometimes the same words are used to discuss different things. For context, I believe God gave us all the right to live and be free. I don’t mean we’ve been wronged by natural death or incarceration; I’m referring to an inalienable right to prevent others from taking the life God gave us or outright slavery. In that context do we have the right to fight for our own life if we’ve done nothing to cause someone to try to end it? Same question regarding our personal freedom from outright “chattel slavery”. My understanding is that turning the other cheek didn’t mean those things. I get that one can CHOOSE to give both up for Christ, but if that’s not why it’s being taken, does that make a difference?
Start small and just visit your local Orthodox Church. Begin to attend services. Speak with the priest. Share with him your struggles. Meet the people in the parish. Just begin. With your smallest efforts, the Lord is faithful to help everything fall into place at the proper time. God bless you🙏🏻
Come see. It’s like going to the gym. Just show up consistently and earnestly. The rest will take care of itself. I realized that may have sounded rather quippy. The fact is, The Liturgy has to be experienced to truly be appreciated. I’ve been moved by other church services before. Probably none more so than my first service at boot camp after “hell week”. But no amount of being moved by a sermon or the music can compare to the feeling of worshipping with the angels that comes from participating in the liturgy. Also, all but one parish priest I’ve ever had guiding me (I started attending while in school so I moved a few times and had more than one priest over the years at different parishes) was very “nice” and not intimidating at all. It MAY be that my first Priest only seemed intimidating because I was a catechumen and he was very traditional, insisting I learn a decent amount of koine Greek and have an understanding of theology on par with a seminarian 😅 Anyway. Sorry for the long reply. I sincerely hope you’ll attend a Divine Liturgy soon. 😁
Thank you so much for this amazing video! A bit off-topic, but I wanted to ask: I have a SafePal wallet with USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). How should I go about transferring them to Binance?
In one of your previous videos you talked about a Saint that gave a gentleman directions to find a certain Saint and the Saint that the gentleman was looking for was giving him directions and he found him up the road where he said he would be and he was in two places at one time!!! Could you please tell me the name of that saint???☦️☦️☦️
Thank you father. Too many people think they have the right to be activists in this world including those who attend the Orthodox Church, when it is really not our business. Our business is our own sins.
Father Paul I have seen Father Josiah get more political, in a good way of course just refuting the horrid practices going on in other countries and America. But also he goes to Pro-life rally's as I have seen on his website.
Rights aren't always frivolous. Some of us don't want our homelands invaded by murderous third-world savages. We believe we have the right to live amongst our own people and kin. We don't believe this right is egoistic, petty or beneath a true Christian. Fr. Truebenbach may agree, but I don't know because he rarely gives examples; just broad statements that we should not focus on rights. But the issues dominating last month's election were not frivolous. This world may be temporary, but it is not negligible.
Every last one of them is made in the image of God though, how do I reconcile with telling Christ "not my neighbour" on the final day of judgement? The circumstances of their arrival are most unfortunate no matter if it is driven by money or escaping war, but none of it surely can alter the state of my heart in light of Christ's commandments. Christ accepted one of the greatest haters of His flock that wanted every last Christian dead as one of his Holy Great Apostles, of such greatness is His Love, what rights do I have to condemn anyone no matter their or my own circumstances? I used to be caught up in this mindset, but in it all I have started calling to remembrance the Last Judgment, where I will be held to account of even every inclination of a thought I ever had, do I then blame the government? The people themselves? The only things my limited wretched mind can conjure up is petty "Things Of This World" to my defence and thus I can almost tangibly hear the Righteous Judge proclaim to me "Depart from me, I do not know you". Father's statement seem broad because they are absolute, take them or leave them, in the face of Christ's commandments there is no in between and the journey to enter a life of them is everlasting. May God have mercy on us all Your prayers
@@djonskimu1148 I think you're taking God's commandments out of context. The entire world is not our neighbor; there are limits to our obligations. The residents of Springfield, OH have had 20,000 new "neighbors" dropped on them from Haiti, who are committing crimes I can't even mention here. And our government turns a blind eye to their crimes. This is well outside the context of Jesus's time. When Jesus spoke of loving the stranger, the context was one or two rare visitors, who were subject to all the laws of their host city; and whose stay would be temporary, not permanent. That was the context of "love the stranger." It is nothing at all like today's. Sometimes kindness to strangers means cruelty to our brothers and neighbors. Are we still obligated? This is the kind of nuance I never hear addressed in sermons. We're only told to love, period, and if atrocities result then let's just not think about that. But God would not have commanded this; and nobody before 1965 thought so either, or we'd have been invaded long ago. We need to have common sense. Some people are not compatible with ours, especially in large numbers. In such cases, we wish them the best, but not in our lands. Just as it is not a virtue to rob Peter to pay Paul, so it is not a virtue to welcome Peter The Stranger when he destroys Paul The Native.
Great video Father. Too many churches focus too much on social issues and politics. I was raised Catholic, married Lutheran and I went through as you call it, my angry atheism phase and I'm so thankful that the Holy Spirit guided me to my local Orthodox Church here in Hagerstown, MD over a year ago.
I didn't know they had a church in Hagerstown. I stop there once a year usually on my way to Ocean City.
Great town. The part I stayed in once was a bit rough, though 😅
Great video Father
Beautiful word. Thank you
Thank you for mentioning Elder Cleopa, whose writings and faith brought me to Orthodoxy long ago. ☦️💕
Thank you for this lesson, Father
Thank you for such a powerful message today. 😊
Great video thank you Fr ☦️☦️☦️
God bless orthodoxy Amen Jesus ❤
I love this man’s talks. God bless you Father 🙏🏼
Important message here. The Orthodox Christian worldview couldn't be more opposed to the modern worldview. Lord have mercy on us ☦️
How does his advice of never getting involved in anything actually change that? How does the Orthodox worldview shine if you shut up, mind your own business and let evil prevail because we're just passing through this world? I'm not talking about building some sort of Christian utopia like some heretics teach, but what this guy is feeding you sounds more like Jehovah's Witness ideology than actual Orthodoxy, which has never been against the cooperation of Church and State. Rights weren't always talked about because they generally didn't exist in the ancient world, and you didn't get the choice to vote at all. God teaches us to be content in our current circumstances, so in a sense, they're not the most important aspect of salvation.
It's fine to talk about so-called rights that aren't actually Christian, how "sacred cows," on the political Right and Left aren't Christian and similar ideas, but the idea that you shouldn't worry about rights at all is quite frankly, ignorant. You want the right to be able to go to the Divine Liturgy and worship God and not have your children taken away for teaching them Christian Truths? Oh who cares, we're not supposed to stand up for silly rights or even against evil! Stick your head in the sand and pray some more. This isn't the Orthodox worldview and sounds like NOTHING that comes from the first 1000 years of the Church. This sounds more like cowardice that doesn't want to directly offend conservatives or liberals, so he would rather avoid certain truths and tell everyone to stop thinking about politics and the world around you entirely.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.
Father can you make a video about the increased struggle with our passions during these longer fasts and how to get back on track?
what a beautiful church
Indeed, our "wanter" must be conformed to Christ, i.e., our will wholly in submission to and aligned with God's will = one will, not many wills. Thank you for another good post, Fr Paul.
I believe God really wanted me to see this message today, the last few days I’ve heard things from people that genuinely bothered me, and I wondered how people could think that way, but hearing this has helped ease my mind
Hello Fr. Paul 👋,
Thank you for this message...it came into my ears 🙉 at a timely need.
Thank you for your obedience ❤.
Fotini
Impromptu video format is also good! Thank you for the edifying words! With a politically active spouse this is something my soul needed to hear today.
Glory to God for all things! ☦️
Thank you, Fr. Paul! ☦️
We love you father…thank you…
Please more videos 🙏🏻
As always, an important message, Father Paul. The Church is not primarily about fixing things in this world.
Thank you, Father, for putting this one out for us.
Glory to God for your message, Fr., thank you❣️❤️🥲
"As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord."
Thank you Father! Your perspective took a lot of stress off my shoulders. I spent too much time in rights and socisl issues.
Wonderful video
Beautiful video Father
Hello 🤗 from Romania
So ABSOLUTELY spot on!
We have believed ALL WRONG that Earth is our home. Why do we believe such nonsense when JesusCHRIST DIRECTLY told us "...skies and Earth will pass away but My(Christ) WORDS will not..." where on this sentence doesJesus say for us to make our life confortable on this planet?!?
He also told us He was "nomad" on His journey, His mission to Glorify GOD. He also mentions multiple times secure a place in Heaven, e.g. "... let the dead bury the dead, and Follow Me", then also the ver poor Lazarus and the rich-man parable, then "...the house of My Father has many rooms...I go prepare a room for you...", to mention just some. Where in any of these do we get the "idea", planet Earth is "my home" ?!? Evil always AIMS malevolently to DECEIVE us, to TRICK, FOOL our small mindsets by PUTTING the most either "stupid, perveted or destructive" evil-led ideas/thoughts/reasonings/faulty-logic/fantasies into our brains in an INTENSIVE COMPELLING FORCEFUL manner but CHRIST also WARNED us about this and ASKED us to be on the ALERT, to "... NOT BE DECEIVED..." (certainty, because "many will come in His Name" to DECEIVE, PLANT evilseeds of DELUSION, forcing us to BELIEVE WRONG THINGS, that mere evil-led FALSEHOODS. The aim ofevil KEEPS being the same TURNA ALL HUMANS into SELFISH/NARCISSISTIC CREATURES THAT OFFEND GOD AND REJECT HIS KIND LOVE BY DECEIVING US
C O N S T A N T LY, FOOLING US AROUND with stupid destructive ideas, theories, self-opinions, etc., and LAUGHS at our continuous gullibility to FALL for evil's deceit, seduction, charm, DEATHTRAP by making us FORGET Love, Peace, Mercy, Life in full WELLBEING with GOD, which is TRUE HAPINESS but ONLY in Heaven.
Planet Earth is full of thousands possibly millions or trillions of viruses and other pathogens (all evil, all desteuctive of life) that AIM at the destruction of GODs Creation. Without GODs very KIND, MERCIFUL blessing we are "no more", because we have NO CAPACITY neither mentally let aline physically to SUSTAIN these continuos constant, now INTENSIFIED, evilattacks UNLESS WE KEEP PRAYING/ASKING GOD❤/JESUS❤ foe HELP.
Thank you once more fr. Paul, may GOD❤ always keep blessing you and the ALL the work you do to keep us focused ONLY on the WORDS OF TRUTH AND LIFE, as dear JesusCHRIST told us about!!
Rights tend to be self-centered while duties and responsibilities tend to be other-centered. However, to fulfill duties and responsibilities, one must give up a measure of self in order to be humble.
Father, I love your videos. I’ve watched and shared many of them in hopes others will discover The Church and come home to it like I did twenty years ago (after 16 years raised in the Church of Rome followed by 9 years searching for The Truth and The Way.).
I ask this with all humility because I want to understand, especially since sometimes the same words are used to discuss different things. For context, I believe God gave us all the right to live and be free. I don’t mean we’ve been wronged by natural death or incarceration; I’m referring to an inalienable right to prevent others from taking the life God gave us or outright slavery. In that context do we have the right to fight for our own life if we’ve done nothing to cause someone to try to end it? Same question regarding our personal freedom from outright “chattel slavery”.
My understanding is that turning the other cheek didn’t mean those things. I get that one can CHOOSE to give both up for Christ, but if that’s not why it’s being taken, does that make a difference?
My soul wants me to drop everything and go Orthodoxy but my flesh is chaining me to the day to day modern living.
Start small and just visit your local Orthodox Church. Begin to attend services. Speak with the priest. Share with him your struggles. Meet the people in the parish. Just begin. With your smallest efforts, the Lord is faithful to help everything fall into place at the proper time. God bless you🙏🏻
Come see.
It’s like going to the gym. Just show up consistently and earnestly.
The rest will take care of itself.
I realized that may have sounded rather quippy. The fact is, The Liturgy has to be experienced to truly be appreciated. I’ve been moved by other church services before. Probably none more so than my first service at boot camp after “hell week”. But no amount of being moved by a sermon or the music can compare to the feeling of worshipping with the angels that comes from participating in the liturgy.
Also, all but one parish priest I’ve ever had guiding me (I started attending while in school so I moved a few times and had more than one priest over the years at different parishes) was very “nice” and not intimidating at all. It MAY be that my first Priest only seemed intimidating because I was a catechumen and he was very traditional, insisting I learn a decent amount of koine Greek and have an understanding of theology on par with a seminarian 😅
Anyway. Sorry for the long reply. I sincerely hope you’ll attend a Divine Liturgy soon. 😁
@@MatlockMoto Thank you for your response!
Thank you so much for this amazing video! A bit off-topic, but I wanted to ask: I have a SafePal wallet with USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). How should I go about transferring them to Binance?
In one of your previous videos you talked about a Saint that gave a gentleman directions to find a certain Saint and the Saint that the gentleman was looking for was giving him directions and he found him up the road where he said he would be and he was in two places at one time!!! Could you please tell me the name of that saint???☦️☦️☦️
Thank you father. Too many people think they have the right to be activists in this world including those who attend the Orthodox Church, when it is really not our business. Our business is our own sins.
To ignore the atrocities by man is to be complicit in it.
Father Paul I have seen Father Josiah get more political, in a good way of course just refuting the horrid practices going on in other countries and America. But also he goes to Pro-life rally's as I have seen on his website.
Christians can't be the light of the world if they're not focusing on the one that gives light.
You cannot serve two masters. Focus on the One 🙏
Rights aren't always frivolous. Some of us don't want our homelands invaded by murderous third-world savages. We believe we have the right to live amongst our own people and kin. We don't believe this right is egoistic, petty or beneath a true Christian. Fr. Truebenbach may agree, but I don't know because he rarely gives examples; just broad statements that we should not focus on rights. But the issues dominating last month's election were not frivolous. This world may be temporary, but it is not negligible.
Every last one of them is made in the image of God though, how do I reconcile with telling Christ "not my neighbour" on the final day of judgement? The circumstances of their arrival are most unfortunate no matter if it is driven by money or escaping war, but none of it surely can alter the state of my heart in light of Christ's commandments. Christ accepted one of the greatest haters of His flock that wanted every last Christian dead as one of his Holy Great Apostles, of such greatness is His Love, what rights do I have to condemn anyone no matter their or my own circumstances?
I used to be caught up in this mindset, but in it all I have started calling to remembrance the Last Judgment, where I will be held to account of even every inclination of a thought I ever had, do I then blame the government? The people themselves? The only things my limited wretched mind can conjure up is petty "Things Of This World" to my defence and thus I can almost tangibly hear the Righteous Judge proclaim to me "Depart from me, I do not know you". Father's statement seem broad because they are absolute, take them or leave them, in the face of Christ's commandments there is no in between and the journey to enter a life of them is everlasting.
May God have mercy on us all
Your prayers
@@djonskimu1148 I think you're taking God's commandments out of context. The entire world is not our neighbor; there are limits to our obligations. The residents of Springfield, OH have had 20,000 new "neighbors" dropped on them from Haiti, who are committing crimes I can't even mention here. And our government turns a blind eye to their crimes. This is well outside the context of Jesus's time. When Jesus spoke of loving the stranger, the context was one or two rare visitors, who were subject to all the laws of their host city; and whose stay would be temporary, not permanent. That was the context of "love the stranger." It is nothing at all like today's.
Sometimes kindness to strangers means cruelty to our brothers and neighbors. Are we still obligated? This is the kind of nuance I never hear addressed in sermons. We're only told to love, period, and if atrocities result then let's just not think about that. But God would not have commanded this; and nobody before 1965 thought so either, or we'd have been invaded long ago. We need to have common sense. Some people are not compatible with ours, especially in large numbers. In such cases, we wish them the best, but not in our lands. Just as it is not a virtue to rob Peter to pay Paul, so it is not a virtue to welcome Peter The Stranger when he destroys Paul The Native.