Chrysostom
Beloved
You have asked for salvation and deliverance, and you have endured much affliction. Remember that affliction is not pointless. Whether we be afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation, which works in the patient enduring of the same sufferings. As you are a partaker of the sufferings, so you shall be of the comfort.
Do not imagine that merely hearing the word of promise is sufficient for salvation. No one part of virtue is enough. There must be a careful hearing and continual recollection, then fortitude, then deliverance from all worldly cares and the deceitfulness of riches, for those vices choke the word and make it unfruitful. While you wait for complete deliverance and healing, see that this very time is the day of salvation.
Now is the acceptable time. Do not let it slip away. He who seeks to save his life on his own terms will lose it, but whoever loses it for His sake shall find it. What will it profit you to gain temporary relief or the whole world, if your soul is lost?
Take care also when you pray. Do not add sin to your suffering by praying against those who trouble you. Such venting and unlawful prayer hinder salvation, for Christ came not to judge the world but to save it, and He speaks what is for your salvation, not your condemnation. The passion of Christ itself is our deliverance and our feast.
In your battle, do not lose sight that His death is the salvation of the world. The things that lead to salvation often appear foolish and painful to those who are perishing, but they are Wisdom and Power. Patient endurance, contempt of worldly comfort, and deliverance from every vice, these cultivate the ground of your soul. Stand fast in the suffering you share with Him, and let it work its saving comfort in you now.
Do not imagine that merely hearing the word of promise is sufficient for salvation. No one part of virtue is enough. There must be a careful hearing and continual recollection, then fortitude, then deliverance from all worldly cares and the deceitfulness of riches, for those vices choke the word and make it unfruitful. While you wait for complete deliverance and healing, see that this very time is the day of salvation.
Now is the acceptable time. Do not let it slip away. He who seeks to save his life on his own terms will lose it, but whoever loses it for His sake shall find it. What will it profit you to gain temporary relief or the whole world, if your soul is lost?
Take care also when you pray. Do not add sin to your suffering by praying against those who trouble you. Such venting and unlawful prayer hinder salvation, for Christ came not to judge the world but to save it, and He speaks what is for your salvation, not your condemnation. The passion of Christ itself is our deliverance and our feast.
In your battle, do not lose sight that His death is the salvation of the world. The things that lead to salvation often appear foolish and painful to those who are perishing, but they are Wisdom and Power. Patient endurance, contempt of worldly comfort, and deliverance from every vice, these cultivate the ground of your soul. Stand fast in the suffering you share with Him, and let it work its saving comfort in you now.
