It is difficult for a modern person to believe in God. He wants to know for sure: does the Supreme exist? Many questions arise: “What does He want from me? What can and should I do for Him? What will He give me and how will He affect my life?"
The relationship between God and man
It is impossible to accept the existence of God and leave life the same. It cannot be called faith. We kind of allow God to exist, but we don't even try to change. A person must decide for himself: if God exists, then he requires something. He reads thoughts and is everywhere, knows the past and sees the future. If He is not there, a terrible conclusion appears: "I do what I want and nothing will come to me for it."
Pascal once reflected on the topic of faith and came to some conclusions:
1. The believer tries to humble himself before his neighbors, to love them, takes upon himself the burden of labor and experiences, believes in the immortality of the soul, etc. actively justifies their faith.
2. If a person is mistaken and there is no God, he still does not lose anything. He tried to live a righteous life, after death he did not find justification for his hopes, but he died, like everyone else, leaving behind a good memory. If there is a God, then the believer finds himself in multiple gains, being close to the Almighty and reaping the fruits of his faith.
3. If the non-believer is right, he gains nothing. Lives, believes that there is no conscience, afterlife, reward for the righteous and punishment for the sinner, and then dies. And if he turns out to be wrong, then everything loses. Leaving after death to another reality, the unfortunate finds confirmation of what he denied, and is deprived of the kingdom of God.
It is impossible to convince yourself of the existence of God through training and volitional exercises. Graceful help is needed, because it is impossible to know God without God. There is a spiritual law that says that God needs to find at least one believer in order to attract many to himself through him.
The first such person was the Old Testament Abraham. Then there were already many people on Earth, but God was looking for such a person who could completely surrender to him. He led him around the Earth, not allowing him to “put down roots,” experienced childlessness, talked to him, and once, demanding to kill his own son and testing his faith, he made a whole people from him, to whom he gave his law and began to communicate with people even deeper.
How to come to God
Most modern people are not given anything to talk with God, they are not even able to think about him. Contemporaries are more willing to believe in flying saucers, kikimor, brownies, or some kind of cosmic mind than in almighty God. The reason is simple: people do not want to change themselves, because this is what the Orthodox faith demands.
Every believer is commanded to speak with God and listen to His words through Holy Scripture. When we read the Bible, He talks to us. Each of us must seek, find God and this is one of the main tasks of human life. If we put God in the main place, everything else will harmoniously build in our life. If the Lord is displaced to the periphery of consciousness and is completely unnecessary, then everything of everyday life will come into confusion, and chaos will come in life.
There is an opinion that people come to God mostly aged, beaten by life and wise by experience, but in fact, God is needed by the young even more. They are predisposed for the religious life. Young people are uncompromising, ardent and have not yet had time to wallow in sins. They are in search of the meaning of life, and their energy is overflowing. They just need the Lord.
It's hard for old people to repent. Their memory is weak, it is difficult to walk and there is no attention to prayer. Such people are already tortured by life. So do not put off repentance until old age. After all, you may not live to see it …
There are episodes in our history in which Christianity could have ceased to exist. In the thirties of the last century, the Soviet government planned to withdraw the word "God" from the Russian language. There were real plans to achieve the triumph of atheism throughout the country. However, 70-80 years later, we again have the opportunity to talk about the meaning of life, about life after death and about moral laws. As long as there is time, everyone can partake of this source of all-consuming love called God.
Based on the sermon of Archpriest A. Tkachev
