St Kosmas Aitolos once said the following:

"Do you hear, my brethren, what an evil thing it is to blame someone else? So if we want to be saved, we should always blame ourselves and not throw the blame on someone else."

What are your thoughts? Can you meet this kind of challenge?

Jesus is the Christ (chosen by God as eternal Prophet, Priest, and King), the Son of the living God who has come down form heaven for all to trust and live in his name (Jn 10:30 - 31).

http://www.ligonier.org/blog/2008/10/understand-the-predestining-gr.html
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Rev. Daniel R. Hyde, B.A., M.Div., Th.M. (cand.)
Pastor, Oceanside United Reformed Church <http://www.oceansideurc.org>

An Athonite elder said, "Let us build a factory of good thoughts. If a factory produces bullets and we feed it with iron, it will make bullets. If the factory makes chalices and we feed it with gold, it will produce gold chalices. If we feed it with iron, it will make chalices of iron. Whatever thoughts we put in our minds, that is what we will get."

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This wonderful man once said,  "Everybody has the ability to fast, pray and give alms. There is no can or can not, but a want to or not."

All who belong to God and Jesus Christ are with the bishop; and all who repent [of schism] and come into the unity of the Church will also belong to God, that they may be living according to Jesus Christ. Make no mistake, my brothers. If anyone follows a man who causes a schism, he 'does not inherit the Kingdom of God'. And any man who goes in for strange doctrine disassociates himself from the Passion.

- St Ignatius of Antioch

The more a man's tongue flees verbosity, the more his intellect is illumined so as to be able to discern deep thoughts; for the rational intellect is befuddled by verbosity.

- St Isaac of Syria

Desert Fathers

Note: Compunction is remorse, a sense of guilt or regret; a sting of conscience; sorrow for one's sins; compunction leads one to repentance.

It happened that when Abba Arsenius was sitting in his cell that he was harassed by demons. His servants, on their return, stood outside his cell and heard him praying to God in these words, "O God, do not leave me. I have done nothing good in your sight, but according to your goodness, let me now make a beginning of good." Arsenius, No. 3

Abba Elias said, "[o]bserve 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." Elias, No. 4

Abba Matoes said, "A brother came to me and said, 'Slander is worse than fornication.' I said to him, 'That is a hard saying.' He said to me, 'What do you mean?' I said to him, 'Slander is bad, but it is soon healed, for he who slanders often repents, saying that he has spoken unkindly; but fornication is physical death.' " Matoes, No. 8

A brother questioned Abba Poemen saying, "Give me a word." And he said to him, "The Fathers put compunction as the beginning of every action." The brother said again, "Give me another word." The old man replied, "As far as you can, do some manual work so as to be able to give alms, for it is written that alms and faith purify from sin." The brother said, "What is faith?" The old man said, "Faith is to live humbly and to give alms." Poemen, No. 69

One day Abba Poemen went with Abba Anoub to the district of Diolcos. Arriving at the cemetery, they saw a woman in great sorrow, weeping bitterly. Standing there they watched her. Going a little further they met someone and Abba Poemen asked him, "What is this woman weeping so bitterly for?" He said, "Because her husband is dead and her son and her brother." Abba Poemen said to the brother, "I tell you, if a man does not mortify all his carnal desires and acquire compunction like this, he cannot become a monk. Truly the whole of this woman's life and soul are turned to compunction." Poemen, No. 72

Abba Poemen said this about the son of Shemai, "His mistake was to justify himself; whoever does that destroys himself." Poemen, No. 207

A brother asked Abba Poemen, "What can I do about my sins?" and the old man said to him, "Weep interiorly, for both deliverance from faults and the acquisition of virtues are gained through compunction." Poemen, No. 208

(Abba Peter) said, "Compunction is absolute master. One cannot protect oneself where there is no compunction." The brother said, "When I am in my cell, compunction is with me, but if someone comes to see me or I go out of my cell, I do not have it any more." The old man said, "That means that you do not really have compunction at all yet. It is merely that you practice it sometimes." Peter the Pionite, No. 2

A brother asked Abba Sisoes, "What shall I do, abba, for I have fallen?" The old man said to him, "Get up again." The brother said, "I have got up again, but I have fallen again." The old man said, "Get up again and again." So the brother said, "How many times?" The old man said, "Until you are taken up either in virtue or in sin. For a man presents himself to judgment in the state in which he is found." Sisoes, No. 38

A brother questioned Abba Poemen saying, 'Give me a word.' And he said to him, 'The fathers put compunction as the beginning of every action.' The brother said again, 'Give me another word.' The old man replied, 'As far as you can, do some manual work so as to be able to give alms, for it is written that alms and faith purify from sin.' The brother said, 'What is faith?' The old man said, 'Faith is to live humbly and to give alms.'

- From the Sayings of the Desert Fathers

St Anthony of Egypt once said that "Whoever strikes a lump of iron, first considers the thought of what he intends to make, a scythe, a sword, an axe. So also we ought to consider what kind of excellence we should pursue, so that we do not toil in vain." What is your pursuit? The term pursuit is an interesting word. This term has a broad range of meanings but I am referring primarily to its definition of an "act of striving for something: the effort made to try to achieve or obtain something over a period of time (Encarta Dictionaries, 2007)." I am confident that the glorification of God Almighty by faith in Jesus Christ should be the believers' pursuit by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Love Christ and put nothing before his love. Christ is everything. He is the source of life, the ultimate desire, he is everything. Everything beautiful is in Christ.

- Father Porphyrios

In church you shall confess your transgressions, and shall not betake yourself to prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life.

- The Didache

Hi! I hope all is well. I want to share with you the fact that we can learn a lot from our elders because I think that you can appreciate this. Once, St Anthony the Great said "I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said groaning, 'What can get through from such snares?' Then I heard a voice saying to me, 'Humility'." What does humility mean to you?  Are you fulfilling this calling from Christ Jesus in your life ?

For believers, humility brings great dividends. St Tikhon of Voronezh wrote that "God descends to the humble as waters flow down from the hills into the valleys"

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When it comes to the new life in Christ Jesus, believers are inwardly renewed by a onetime reception of the Holy Spirit. In this life, the believers have received the written and spoken Word of God to testily of the this most basic but important truth. I think our forefathers experienced this when they said the following:  

One of the monks inquired of the great teacher, Abba Nistero, 'What should I do to obtain the best in life?' The abba replied, 'All works are not equal. The Scripture says that Abraham was hospitable, and God was with him. It says that Elias loved quiet, and God was with him. It says that David was humble, and God was with him. So, whichever path you discover that your soul longs after in its quest for God, follow that, and watch always over the integrity of your heart.

- Apothegmata Patrum (Latin ed.)