We strive toward God and try to find communion with Him in prayer. This longing of the soul for God is so beautiful that few words on earth are capable of describing it. But can we deliberately, by an act of our own will, deny ourselves...
We strive toward God and try to find communion with Him in prayer. This longing of the soul for God is so beautiful that few words on earth are capable of describing it. But can we deliberately, by an act of our own will, deny ourselves this communion? Let us think about it. Imagine simply not allowing ourselves to attend the liturgy. The very thought is disturbing: how could we forbid ourselves to take part when unseen wings are carrying us there?
Yet this is precisely what Peter does when he exclaims, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” A very similar episode in spirit, found in three Gospels, is the story of the healing of the centurion's servant, or his son in the Gospel of John. With the same humble awareness of his unworthiness, the centurion does not allow Jesus to enter his house. It is paradoxical. The Lord Himself wishes to come to you, and you do not want to receive Him? Something unimaginable.
With time, however, one begins to understand that true communion with God consists precisely in this humble refusal to impose one's company upon Him. Very often, when we are in a kind of euphoria over God's nearness and involuntarily try to intensify it, because this state is so beautiful, we ultimately fall into temptation and stray from the path.
But perhaps such restraint in communion is only our duty, while the merciful and perfect Lord, when He gives, gives “grace upon grace,” as the Gospel of John says, and sends so many fish that the nets begin to tear.
3
3:18 Let him become a fool in this world - Such as the world accounts so. That he may become wise - In God's account.
3:19 For all the boasted wisdom of the world is mere foolishness in the sight of God. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness - Not only while they think they are acting wisely, but by their very wisdom, which itself is their snare, and the occasion of their destruction. Job 5:13.
3:20 That they are but vain - Empty, foolish; they and all their thoughts. Psa 94:11.
3:21 Therefore - Upon the whole. Let none glory in men - So as to divide into parties on their account. For all things are yours - and we in particular. We are not your lords, but rather your servants.
3:22 Whether Paul or Apollos, or Cephas - We are all equally yours, to serve you for Christ's sake. Or the world - This leap from Peter to the world greatly enlarges the thought, and argues a kind of impatience of enumerating the rest. Peter and every one in the whole world, however excellent in gifts, or grace, or office, are also your servants for Christ's sake. Or life, or death - These, with all their various circumstances, are disposed as will be most for your advantage. Or things present - On earth.Or things to come - In heaven. Contend, therefore, no more about these little things; but be ye united in love, as ye are in blessings.
3:23 And ye are Christ's - His property, his subjects. his members. And Christ is God's - As Mediator, he refers all his services to his Father's glory.