Chrysostom
Beloved of All
I thank God for your prayer and for the hunger you show for what is most needful. You have rightly named the goal of our teaching, that love which comes from a purified heart and a faith without contradiction and a good conscience. Where these three are present, all our labor has its proper end.
You ask to worship in spirit and truth and to come freely to the throne of grace. This is our confidence, that we have one Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ, our merciful and sympathetic High Priest who lives forever. It is God who sprinkles and washes the conscience, and it is our part to draw near with truth and in full assurance of faith. Do not neglect this drawing near. As you have written, we receive mercy apart from the law, not by our works, but as branches receive sap from the vine. Abide in Him, and fruit will follow in its season.
You also pray to be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to walk worthily of the Lord, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. For this cause we also do not cease to pray for you. As those who run in the games are cheered most when they are near the victory, so I encourage you to press on. God has provided everything we need for life and godliness, and He will give you grace and discipline to study His Word accurately from cover to cover, so that you will not teach error and misrepresent Him, but will rightly handle the word of truth. Seek to know the breadth and depth of the love of Christ, and wisdom to know and to do the will of God.
Keep a good conscience before Him, for there is nothing so painful as a bad conscience and nothing so light and so strong as a good hope and a clean conscience. It gives wings to the soul, while the expectation of evil presses heavily even upon those who seem to live in plenty. Let your conscience be your goad each day, wounding you gently when you are negligent and leading you on to humility and greater diligence. Be busy not with the sins of others but with their good works and with your own, remembering the judgment seat from which no prayers can deliver, that you may be kept humble and watchful.
You pray for unity and love and zeal to abound in your churches and families and teams, and for grace to accomplish what is needful. This is good. Love is not love if it loves contrary to what seems good to God. True love is mingled with the fear of God, as one who prays without ceasing yet yields all to the will of God as clay under the hand of the potter. So love one another, and spare the weaker brother, that whatever you do you may do with a good conscience and without doubt. God does not compel by force, for soothing is mightier than force, and He invites us to choose the good things He freely offers. Invite others in the same way, by patience and faith, proclaiming repentance and forgiveness in His name, and let your life show that virtue is possible and not burdensome to those who are in earnest.
I join you in asking the Father to keep you from temptation and from evil, from stumbling blocks and from fear and deceit, and to guard you by His holy angels. May He grant you clarity and order, simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ, fellowship with Him and with one another, and the joy of seeing sinners restored through repentance.
May the Lord grant you to walk worthily, to tend the garden He has given you to keep, and to attain the good things to come by the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit now and always. Amen.
You ask to worship in spirit and truth and to come freely to the throne of grace. This is our confidence, that we have one Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ, our merciful and sympathetic High Priest who lives forever. It is God who sprinkles and washes the conscience, and it is our part to draw near with truth and in full assurance of faith. Do not neglect this drawing near. As you have written, we receive mercy apart from the law, not by our works, but as branches receive sap from the vine. Abide in Him, and fruit will follow in its season.
You also pray to be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to walk worthily of the Lord, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. For this cause we also do not cease to pray for you. As those who run in the games are cheered most when they are near the victory, so I encourage you to press on. God has provided everything we need for life and godliness, and He will give you grace and discipline to study His Word accurately from cover to cover, so that you will not teach error and misrepresent Him, but will rightly handle the word of truth. Seek to know the breadth and depth of the love of Christ, and wisdom to know and to do the will of God.
Keep a good conscience before Him, for there is nothing so painful as a bad conscience and nothing so light and so strong as a good hope and a clean conscience. It gives wings to the soul, while the expectation of evil presses heavily even upon those who seem to live in plenty. Let your conscience be your goad each day, wounding you gently when you are negligent and leading you on to humility and greater diligence. Be busy not with the sins of others but with their good works and with your own, remembering the judgment seat from which no prayers can deliver, that you may be kept humble and watchful.
You pray for unity and love and zeal to abound in your churches and families and teams, and for grace to accomplish what is needful. This is good. Love is not love if it loves contrary to what seems good to God. True love is mingled with the fear of God, as one who prays without ceasing yet yields all to the will of God as clay under the hand of the potter. So love one another, and spare the weaker brother, that whatever you do you may do with a good conscience and without doubt. God does not compel by force, for soothing is mightier than force, and He invites us to choose the good things He freely offers. Invite others in the same way, by patience and faith, proclaiming repentance and forgiveness in His name, and let your life show that virtue is possible and not burdensome to those who are in earnest.
I join you in asking the Father to keep you from temptation and from evil, from stumbling blocks and from fear and deceit, and to guard you by His holy angels. May He grant you clarity and order, simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ, fellowship with Him and with one another, and the joy of seeing sinners restored through repentance.
May the Lord grant you to walk worthily, to tend the garden He has given you to keep, and to attain the good things to come by the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit now and always. Amen.
