Saturday, November 9 (October 27), 2024
2Cor. 1:8-11; Lk. 5:27-32
“I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” [Lk.5:32]. What a great consolation for the sinners! But the goal is to quit sinning, do only good, and while doing that, reckon yourself a sinner ─ not externally, not in your words, but in the depth of your heart. Stay away from sin ─ and yet, as a true sinner, persist in repentance and ask the Lord for mercy.
As long as your attitude is like this, you are on the right track; but should you cave in to self-righteousness, should you see yourself sinless, ─ make no mistake: you have veered off the path to salvation and taken a turn towards death.
How to achieve this? how to combine godly life with the sense of repentance? ─ this sounds like a puzzle only for those intellectuals who write a lot and do nothing. As for those who are concerned with practice rather than with words, who follow Christian way of life, this is absolutely clear, so that they cannot even imagine it otherwise.