Do we forgive our neighbors their trespasses? God also forgives us in His mercy. Do we refuse to forgive? God, too, will refuse to forgive us. As we treat our neighbors, so also does God treat us. The forgiveness, then, of your sins or unforgiveness, and hence also your salvation or destruction, depend on you yourself, man. For without forgiveness of sins there is no salvation. You can see for yourself how terrible it is.
He who wishes to tear up the account of his sins and to be inscribed in the Divine book of the saved, can find for this purpose no better means than obedience.
Grace is the food and clothing of the saints. It wakens grief in a man's heart, making him dissatisfied and moving him to seek the reason of this dissatisfaction. Grace gives sorrow and grace comforts; showing us the poverty of all things, it engenders in us a repentant sorrow for having fallen short of the love of God... One who is possessed by such sorrow will always grieve, for he thinks of God's offended love and not of the fear of hell. It is a grief of love.
'If our prayer is not in harmony with our deeds, we labor in vain,' Abba Moses often told the young monks. 'How are we to accomplish such harmony?' they asked him one day. 'When we make that which we seek fitting to our prayer,' explained the saint. 'Only then can the soul be reconciled with its Creator and its prayer be acceptable, when it sets aside all of its own evil intentions.'
Observe your thoughts, and beware of what you have in your heart and your spirit, knowing that the demons put ideas into you so as to corrupt your soul by making it think of that which is not right, in order to turn your spirit from the consideration of your sins and of God.
Cultivate patience. Patience is a heavenly gift, a gift from the Heavenly Father... With patience, and love for your fellow men, you become a victor in life's continual trials.
Many abstain from meat, milk and other food which God has not forbidden and which was even given as a blessing of people who have learned the truth and know how to partake of these things with thanksgiving (I Tim. 4:34). But the same abstemious, devout-living people, give scandal by their action, and spread scandal with their tongue like an incendiary fire.
If anyone wants to drive out the demons, he must first subdue the passions, for he will banish the demon of the passion which he has mastered. For example, the devil accompanies anger; so it you control your anger, the devil of anger will be banished. And so it is with each of the passions.
For love does not seek its own, it labors, sweats, watches to build up the brother: nothing is inconvenient to love, and by the help of God it turns the impossible into the possible.... Love believes and hopes.... It is ashamed of nothing. Without it, what is the use of prayer? What use are hymns and singing? What is the use of building and adorning churches? What is mortification of the flesh if the neighbor is not loved? Indeed, all are of no consequence. As an animal cannot exist without bodily warmth, so no good deed can be alive without true love; it is only the pretence of a good deed.
Do you wish God to hear your prayer immediately, brother? When you lift your hands up to heaven, pray first of all, with your heart, for your enemies and God will grant you speedily whatever else you request.
