Please give prayers to my country Ethiopia, the government is killing so many people. And is kidnapping and is arresting the Ethiopian orthodox Christians. Please pray for them.
Lord Jesus Christ, hear the prayers of Thy most pure Mother, and heed the pleas of our Ethiopian Brothers and Sisters in Christ. One of your holy disciples guided the Ethiopian, opening his eyes to the scriptures. Hear now our prayers, Oh our King and God, and stay the hands of those persecuting Thy Holy Church, and bring them into the Light of they Grace and Love. Amen.
I yearn for salvation so much but i feel so unworthy of such a beautiful gift. I wish i was strong enough to completely turn my back on all worldly things , particularly my lustful sin. I keep trying , and keep failing but i wont stop hope and trying and praying , thankyou for this honest video.
May God give you the strength to withstand this fire of repentance, dear one. Do not compromise either side: keep your fear of God intact (that will protect you from the hardening of your heart), while also keeping your hope in His Love intact (that will protect you against despondency). May you be blessed, my dear one.
Pray for God's mercy on my soul that I may gain a new lens into my wickedness please 🙏. I want to feel more remorseful and repentant when I sin. Not just apologizing so I can feel his love and reap his benefits again, but apologizing because I regret hurting my love
I am a new Christian and I love the different people God has put in my path to learn about Him from. Thank you for serving the way you do to strengthen the faith of people like me, and so many others. This is a question and prayer answered, your message here. ❤️
Please pray for me this Lent. I have betrayed my wife's trust and our marriage is in peril. We have a 2 year old that means so much to us and I want her to be fully loved, especially now. I pray the Lord guide us through this time and I pray that the Lord have mercy. ☦️
11:36 That sense of entitlement is basically what I learned the phrase "saved by faith alone" to mean, growing up Protestant. This makes much more sense, both rationally and Biblically. Which are, of course, the only things that matter to Protestants, because what else is there to judge "sense" by? Is it similar to the hole I usually find myself in, that God would not save me because of my wretchedness and distance from repentance. Is it appropriate to pray that God save me for His name's sake, like David did? How can you be saved from not thinking you can be saved?
It is so true, we are not saved by works, but by faith in Christ BUT We show the reality of Christ in our lives, we show the reality of our faith by what we do and how we live! I remember a sermon, where the pastor had said, "The reason why so many people choose NOT to come to Christ is because of what they see in Christians...it is because of Christians!" That really hit home to me, and though I am weak and fail often, being the sinner I am, my hope is found in Christ, and I need to show that hope to others by how I live and act! Faith in Christ saves us, how we live shows the reality of that faith and of Christ in us. Praise God, praise Jesus, praise the Holy Spirit
I'm new to Christianity (I'm a child of Indian immigrants, not raised in a Christian household) and also new to this channel but this was an excellent video and I'm gonna observe Lent this year! However your supposed to do it, I don't really know lol. I've been doing OMAD (one meal a day) intermittent fasting for quite a while so I'm down to fast!! Edit: at 7:00 you say to kick off Lent by going over those parables of Jesus. I'll be sure to do that!
May God bless you and direct you, dear one. Have no worry - many of us (myself included) have been raised in circumstances that are far removed from Christianity. I grew up in a Communist state, and yet Christ found a way to touch even my sinful heart. Keep moving forward; make the small slow steps that you can make, and Christ will do the running for you.
Glory to God! if you're curious about the fasting/Scripture reading schedule and Lenten traditions that Fr. Seraphim mentioned, these can be found at your nearest Orthodox Christian Church, or there are some resources online. There is too much to explain about Orthodox Christianity, and Lent in particular, for me to put in one comment, but I will mention that this is the historical and sanctified Church of the Apostles that was created at the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Church is not denominational; She is pre-denominational. Fr. Seraphim is a monastic priest at the Mull Monastery in the Hebrides, Scotland. As an adult convert, I can say that you are in the right place, and are certainly welcome in any of our churches. God bless! :)
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. I feel so awful after this video, because I'm constantly there in my sins, and I think it's the worst sin I commit, even above my sins of lust; that I assume that "oh, I've sinned, but God will forgive me if I go to confession, so I might as well indulge and get it out of my system." I just feel so horrible.
May the lord prepare us for the period of repentance that is lent. The fear of coming out of lent the exact same person as one enters is overwhelming at times . May the lord search our hearts and see if there’s any wicked way and lead us to the way everlasting. May He accept our tiny Lenten offerings and by His grace change us. Thank you for the message today of hope and true repentance
Amen, dear Amira, amen. Often, change comes in manners we do not expect, and Christ uses 'tools' we do not expect. Just hold on to your faith, your patience and your determination to do all that is in your power. Once you have reached that limit, Christ will do the rest. May we all be blessed, dear one.
@@mullmonastery Thank you dear father for taking the time to write back . I needed to hear those words . God bless you 🙏. By Gods grace and In Him , I will try to follow your words. Pray for us 🙏
God bless you dear Father for those powerful words of reminder against our all too easy presumption of entitlement to salvation. As St. Augustine wrote, and as you put it so succinctly in your own words, “Do not despair; one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned.”
Thankyou for answering our email. I really appreciate that. I have learnt from my spiritual father that it is only to persist in the unforgivable sin is unforgivable. I hope my friend who is a Calvinist will hear this message and find insight.
Dear Father Seraphim, I am new to the Orthodox Faith, and have only recently accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I am 51 years old, and I fear that I will die without given the chance to confess my sins, to be baptized. I have done horrible acts throughout my life, and am afraid that it may be too late for me to be forgiven. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. You have helped me immensely. God bless, Raphael.
Do not despair, the Lord is with you, he loves you, and he knows you. He will be compassionate and merciful to those who draw near to him in humble trust, he turns away nobody. Have total faith in God, and in the parts of you that are of God, that part of you that is love, and who rests in God.
We get to participate, yet we get stuck. Stuck in selfishness, condemnation, and that keeps me stuck in repetitive sin. The more active I am in my spiritual life, the less I sin, the despair and condemnation fall off. The more I have a heart to be desperately closer to Him.
This was a completely lovely sermon. It contained a lot of advice for my soul, needed advice to ascertain if I am keeping my feet on the road to salvation. It is difficult to know if you have no person to help you, and, you are trying to evaluate yourself. You Father, opened up your heart once again and revealed your love for your sheep and your Savior. I had asked many people in my life what is the unforgiveable sin. I received various answers. Today I received the proper answer. This was a perfectly appointed teaching to start pondering before Lent. I feel relieved after listening. God Bless you my Dear Father Aldea, for giving us another teaching full of wisdom and spoken with gentleness and love.
Anyone in hell has chosen to be there. Those who truly love to dominate and exploit others, who take joy in sadism and so on, cannot abide in the atmosphere in the heavens; they run from it to a place where they can be what the truly want.
I fell into sin and felt that I was lost for yrs. I've been drawn back to the cross and I've been led to the orthodox faith of which I knew nothing before. I first came to Christ through the Word and then fell into sin for 14 yrs. I felt damned. But almost 3 years ago I was able to come before the cross and seek Him, I've been given a new heart. I was in serious sin. I felt I was not able to come back to Christ. But now, I no longer steal, I no longer long to kill as I did. I was so far gone I was sick 😢. I've been given a heart that longs for Christ constantly and my sin has tormented me. That depth is what I was in and still am. I know I'm not worthy of anything and what I have done is so terrible 😢 that it tore my heart and I still bleed from it. But in this searching Him out, in hopes that against all odds He might have mercy on me. That in hope against all odds that I might have been kept from committing the unforgivable sin and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I pray 🙏 I might somehow be given the grace to pursue Christ in spirit and truth. And in part, I believe it because when I first found Christ and experienced the beauty of communion with His precious and beautiful Holy Spirit, it was through the Word, but all I knew was protestant teaching and Roman Catholic, which I couldn't agree with the pope being infallible. Yet the protestant church is so divided and i always knew it was wrong, and that the Scriptures do not disagree. I know there is one truth. It is the truth handed down from the beginning. And so being led into the orthodox teaching has been healing to me. And because I've been led to this, knowing that the Father draws us to the Son, it is not of our self that we are drawn but it is Christ who chooses us. So I have found a hope dawning within me that I may be able to come to the throne of grace. I've felt so unworthy to even come to Him in prayer, for yrs. And these last 3 yrs. The longing that is so deep I am able to only seek Him. Even with the sin I have, that I despise and with all I've done, it is as though a dawn is coming within me and the Sun, is the Son. I feel like I was in the darkest hrs before the dawn. But in truth, i know that Christ loce is above and beyond our comprehension, but my sin was so heavy I felt I wouldn't be forgiven. Though even in those yrs. of debauchery I still longed to be in Christ Jesus and felt only despair in my sins. I never doubt Christ, it is myself that i despise and doubt, knowing how unworthy I have only proven to be..😢 and in truth, Christ alone is worthy, and whether or not I make it into the Gateway of heaven, i will worshio His Holy name and i will continue to strive to grow closer to Him amd strive towards the goal. And i will continue to tell others of His love and His mercy and of our need for Him. Hoping that I might be a dog in the dog house on the very outer portions of the kingdom of heaven and receive the scraps from the table 🙏 and I will kiss His feet if He permits it. But even if I have no hope, I will still strive to serve Him and all of you who are within the body. And love all of those who I encounter. I've done so much bad that my good could never outweigh the bad that I've done. But still I will hope, and I will pray, and i will strive, and I will humbly learn the way of orthodoxy. And I pray the Lord will grace me with the ability to pursue this out in Him, and that He will uphold me to be able to do this in all of my weaknesses. I have been humbled in a very major way. And for that, I give God praise, and God is glorified in that along with all things. For all is to His glory. Amen. God bless you brother 🙏 🙌 ❤️ in the precious and mighty name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
Thankyou father ,I feel like I'm struggling alot. I feel I know inside that the faith is real but in my head theres this confusion which almost makes me feel like I'm in some kind of spiritual battle. I feel I am also struggling alot with sin.
Thats the Christian life; struggling. We all must struggle with sin, and there are two elements to struggle. One is the failure: we can think "why is this so hard? Why must I struggle? It should be easy!" But there is also the element of attempt. If you werent trying, there would be no struggle! "Well, I may not understand why it is difficult, but I accept that it is, and I will do what I can to fight. Most importantly, when I fail I must get up again, repent and start striding back towards Christ with a new resolve." So keep struggling Lisa. As Father said in a comment; we do the small steps and Christ does the sprinting! The Father of the prodigal son runs out to meet him from a long way off. God bless you and your holy struggles.
Dear Lisa, as Mike said above, we are all struggling. This is not a sign that you are failing, this is a sign that you are joining the Body of Christ - we all struggle, because we are all opposed and purposely thrown into confusion by the evil one. You are a sister in Christ of the one who cried 'I believe, Lord! Help my unbelief' - hold on to the seed of faith in your heart and it will continue to grow and it will bring forth fruit at the right time.
I think that the most important take-away of your talk was defining the "balancing act" between despair and entitledness, and pinpointing both extremes as the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit. I am taking note of that and hopefully sharing it with others.
thank you so much father for your videos they have always been very useful and insightful to me. I want to ask you please to pray for the people in Turkey and Syria as a devastating earthquake hit. I'm following you from Syria please if you can send us a message of comfort and faith as the suffering and pain we live feels too heavy to bear. I ask your prayers all sisters and brothers 🙏🏻🙏🏻 Thank you father!
Dear Maria, I am so sorry for the pain you are going through. I am so sorry for the years of nightmarish pain your nation has suffered. Syria has give Christianity some of the most powerful, beautiful and loving Saints the Church has ever known - St Isaac and St Ephrem above all. May you grown in your faith through it all. May you grown in your love and compassion as you witness all that pain. And may Christ plant a seed of His Love in your heart to protect you from all evil and to guide you to His Light. We pray for you. Please pray for us. In our prayer we are one.
Normally the topic of the unpardonable sin would bring me despair, but this video has left me with a sense of peace that God has me on the right track in the long-term Thank you for this
This finally makes sense to me. I have always denied the unforgivable sins any merit because God can do anything. However, if I live in sin while asking for grace and forgiveness and thinking that i will be covered for the same sin, that can not be forgiven because the sin continues. It has nothing to do with the Gathers desire to forgive me. I would not be forgivable because i would not be positioning myself to receive forgiveness. I am experiencing something similar with family. now,. Praise Jesus.
It seems that you know me and that you gave this lesson for me. Truly inspired by the Holy Spirit. I am thinking of becoming a monk, giving my life entirely to Christ. Pray to the Holy Spirit to give me discernment.
Dear Fr Seraphim, thank you so very much for this very timely video & your exposition on entitlement ( so evident in society today & difficult to throw off) & your call to hope in God's freely given gifts of love self-sacrificing, to humility & true repentance as we keep before us both ends of the spectrum. I'm not wording this very well. At this moment i am feeling overwhelmed by the suffering of so many people both in my own country NZ from horrific floods completely destroying homes & that of the people in Turkey/Syria as a result of the earthquakes & the ongoing war in the Ukraine, with the loss of so many lives. Perhaps you could develop a session on how we can, in our prayers & small selfsacrificing acts..., have hope & help others struggling to connect with God when in the depths of their pain & suffering they are struggling to find God. May God continue to bless you Fr Seraphim, and shower you with spiritual fortitude as you give of yourself & help so many of us with the wisdom we crave and you share so beautifully. Blessings & assurance of my prayers. From Jenny in Dunedin NZ.
Do what you can (if there is anything you can do) to help in a practical way, dear one. If not, light a candle for those people. Wake up at night, when the torrents of thoughts and worries are asleep, and stand before an icon with a lit candle - there is no need to pray with words if you can find none or if you are too tired: just stand there, with a burning candle, like a burning candle and pray for the people who are under those collapsed buildings, those who have died and are now standing before Christ, those whom they left behind. Burn for them as a living prayer and Christ will receive the sacrifice of your heart, dear one.
@@mullmonastery Thank you, dear Fr Seraphim for your response to my comment; so very practical as ever. Yes, I shall light a candle before my icons & stand as a burning candle with Christ the Light of the World beside as all these images pass before me. The northern part of nz is currently in the throes of a destructive cyclone which has been passing over the land for 2 days now. Thank you for your prayers & encouragement in this time when one clings to hope for others while at the same time can feel useless in the enormity of it all. Yet our prayers & small acts are never useless in the sight of God. Be greatly blessed dear Fr Seraphim & thank you from the depths of my heart. It has just turned 7am here in nz- 14th February.
I have put down chewing tobacco for Lent & pray I can complete this & quit for good. All I want is to be close to Jesus & support my family. My wife has finally woken up and realize we are in perilous times, but with Lord Jesus we can get thru anything. I notice many people wanting genuine relationship with God & I pray they get it, no amount of money can buy the feeling of being "right with God" (as my old priest use to say). Jesus, and Mama Mary, are my 2 go tos. Sometimes I have to shut myself up cause when alone I talk to Them nonstop. God Bless you all with the peace of Jesus.
Only God knows what a struggle it is for me to be close to his vision of what I’m supposed to be . Whether it is because of my innate character or circumstances I do not know .. but I very much struggle a lot I am from a non Christian background, my whole family is Muslim and everyone around me in my social circle - friends and colleagues -is an atheist. I cannot show or practice my faith openly without causing great scandal or offence. I also live in the world and have a proclivity for worldly things. I come from a privileged background, dream of a family , nice house and nice life - my entire life I was working and was pushed to work for that and it’s what is expected of me. To maintain a life of prayer and commitment to God in a manner that is righteous and genuine but also not to cut ties or cause offence to my parents and loved ones is the biggest cross I will have to carry in this life. This may be nothing compared to what other people have to go through and what challenges fall before them but even this relatively small burden feels impossible for me to carry. Please pray for me father for I don’t want my heart to grow cold towards God and faith and I want to be saved
Isaiah 55:8-9"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts"
This is a good reminder of the extent of God’s mercy. Nothing can separate us from God’s love, especially if we truly and earnestly desire to love Him in turn
1. Despair and abandon 2. spiritual abuse by entitalment 3. mocking of Jesus life Hope and repentance Comment if I forgot a detail or like to add further detail
You have been granted, dear Fr Seraphim, to put into words and bring to surface the deepest longings of my heart. Now you have more fully opened up my understanding of the prize (and the opposite), the striving somehow becomes more purposeful and worthwhile. O lazy me for all the years I have wasted, may God have mercy.
What is behind us is almost irrelevant, dear Pat. We shall be judged in the state we shall be found - if you are found standing in your faith, this is how you will enter the Kingdom. There are all those beautiful stories of the Saints who lived in the deepest sin but found the grace to repent the day before their death and they found their salvation. The first among them is the Good Thief - one who confesses himself that he deserves to die on the cross, and yet he is the first human being to enter Paradise. The Tradition of the Church collects these stories for us because we share a common humanity and they can be of extraordinary help to us.
I seem to constantly give into my passions. I hate them after having done them, yet I don't seem to hate them enough to stop doing them. I feel lost. It seems to me that to a degree, I have done both unforgivable sins you have described. Therefore, if unforgivable, am I now doomed? I am sorry, Father, for it seems I have failed horribly. I feel constantly bad as I dont seem to pray enough, I can't seem to stick to fasting, and my passions rule my life. I try to change, but I fall on my face all the time. I fail and fail. Maybe my pride is so great that I will never see success. Maybe my sins are unforgivable. I just dont want to give up if there is a chance that I may have a scrap from the table. Please forgive me a sinner, and if you are willing, pray for my soul
Thank you Father so very much for sharing in such a firm, no uncertain terms manner what we all need to strive to do during this year’s Lent period and beyond, if we want to have any hope of being judged worthy enough to pass through the narrow gate into heaven and ever lasting happiness with our Dear Lord Jesus Christ Son of The Living God.💫 🙏🙏🙏
Thank You All Powerful Lord Jesus Christ for Paying for All my Sins Thank You Jesus For Shedding Every Last Drop of Your Perfect Redeeming Innocent Blood For The Forgiveness Full Remission of All my Sins Thank You Jesus For Dying in my place on The Cross ✝️ ❤To Pay for All my Sins as The Perfect Sacrifice because You Have No Sin Thank You for Being Buried Thank You Jesus for COMING BACK ALIVE 3 Days After Your Death because You Are The Son of God and God At The Same Time!!! I LOVE You Heavenly Father ABBA I LOVE You Jesus I LOVE You Holy Spirit Not 3 Different Gods But The 1 The Only True Living GOD Most High Revealed to us in 3 Ways ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤she who is Forgiven Much LOVES Much!!!!
Thank you Father for this timely reminder. I so often go into lent with no idea of what I am going to do and end up achieving nothing at the end of it. This year is going to be different!
I say that in my last statement, I spoke on what I know in knowledge, but knowledge puffs up. It is love that edifies. I do truly feel I was in a place of that place of sin. Not that I wanted to be, I felt that I was given over to my own devices ... 😢 i hope and pray that I am not guilty of those things. I truly love God. And I truly fear God. Never have I felt I could just do as I pleased in this flesh, and I never felt anything was impossible for God, it was my own self that I doubted and my own worthiness of such a love. I hope and pray that in His mercy i was kept from actually committing that sin!!!! Oh Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me please 🙏 😢 im such a sinner God 🙏 forgive me for my doubts 🙏 😔 for you are not to be doubted Lord, i do not doubt you Lord. It is I myself who i place no faith in. Please forgive me my wrongs, for they are many😢... bless your Holy Name.
Fr. Seraphim, thank you for such clarity. It talks directly to my heart. I'm a Catholic but it is beautiful to see how close we are to our Orthodox brethren.
ive been feeling so confused and my poor health contributes to it, i'm constantly struggling so much with my problems that frequently i forget that getting closer to God is the most important thing that i need to do.
Father thank you and God Bless you for your videos. Praying for you and your vocation. Please remember our Turkish brothers and sisters in your prayers and those who feel abandoned and lost by things out of their control. ❤🙏
All will be well, my dear one. Bow your head before Him and ask for forgiveness. Make a promise to do your best not to repeat the sin and He will give you the grace to move forward. Just be honest in your desire to never fall again, even if this has happened a thounsand times before. Promise to try your absolute best (this is in your power), but do not promise not sin again (this is in Christ's power).
I'm 60 and have always wanted to know what are the sins against The Holy Spirit, I've had so many different meanings but this make sense to my heart. God bless you and all your viewers. Chris from Australia
We are all struggling, dear Clark - myself more than all. But we must all move forward because there is no Life outside Christ, no Life in the darkness of sin we have left behind. So we move forward; slowly, painfully at times, but forward.
God bless Father for this message and the previous on the reset of my spiritual life. Somehow God, through my Guardian Angel, is pushing me to do this hard reset. There are signs that this will be a special Lent and I need to take the battle very serious and it will be a hard one. My demons already entered the battlefield, doing their thing, and I can only scream from the depths of my heart *Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner!* God bless you, again, and again, and again!☦
Please give prayers to my country Ethiopia, the government is killing so many people. And is kidnapping and is arresting the Ethiopian orthodox Christians. Please pray for them.
Oh, Jesus, hear this prayer and see these people. Invade Lord, protect, redeem. Be strong with your people in Ethiopia. :’(
May the Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy please.
Lord Jesus Christ, hear the prayers of Thy most pure Mother, and heed the pleas of our Ethiopian Brothers and Sisters in Christ. One of your holy disciples guided the Ethiopian, opening his eyes to the scriptures. Hear now our prayers, Oh our King and God, and stay the hands of those persecuting Thy Holy Church, and bring them into the Light of they Grace and Love. Amen.
Спаси вас Господь!!!
I yearn for salvation so much but i feel so unworthy of such a beautiful gift. I wish i was strong enough to completely turn my back on all worldly things , particularly my lustful sin. I keep trying , and keep failing but i wont stop hope and trying and praying , thankyou for this honest video.
May God give you the strength to withstand this fire of repentance, dear one. Do not compromise either side: keep your fear of God intact (that will protect you from the hardening of your heart), while also keeping your hope in His Love intact (that will protect you against despondency). May you be blessed, my dear one.
I am there too, God won't let us be lost, hallowed be his Name!
You are worthy.
Jesus Christ have mercy on us, Father Serafim thank you for your teachings!
Amen x
Amen
Pray for God's mercy on my soul that I may gain a new lens into my wickedness please 🙏. I want to feel more remorseful and repentant when I sin. Not just apologizing so I can feel his love and reap his benefits again, but apologizing because I regret hurting my love
I am a new Christian and I love the different people God has put in my path to learn about Him from. Thank you for serving the way you do to strengthen the faith of people like me, and so many others. This is a question and prayer answered, your message here. ❤️
I am the most evil person. I should be utterly ashamed of myself.
Please pray for me this Lent. I have betrayed my wife's trust and our marriage is in peril. We have a 2 year old that means so much to us and I want her to be fully loved, especially now. I pray the Lord guide us through this time and I pray that the Lord have mercy. ☦️
Rely on His Mercy and Grace, that's all any of us have.
11:36 That sense of entitlement is basically what I learned the phrase "saved by faith alone" to mean, growing up Protestant. This makes much more sense, both rationally and Biblically. Which are, of course, the only things that matter to Protestants, because what else is there to judge "sense" by? Is it similar to the hole I usually find myself in, that God would not save me because of my wretchedness and distance from repentance. Is it appropriate to pray that God save me for His name's sake, like David did? How can you be saved from not thinking you can be saved?
It is so true, we are not saved by works, but by faith in Christ
BUT
We show the reality of Christ in our lives, we show the reality of our faith by what we do and how we live!
I remember a sermon, where the pastor had said, "The reason why so many people choose NOT to come to Christ is because of what they see in Christians...it is because of Christians!"
That really hit home to me, and though I am weak and fail often, being the sinner I am, my hope is found in Christ, and I need to show that hope to others by how I live and act!
Faith in Christ saves us, how we live shows the reality of that faith and of Christ in us.
Praise God, praise Jesus, praise the Holy Spirit
I understand more why I need Jesus prayer in my life, because I must remember I am a poor muddy sinful man, I have no merit.
I'm new to Christianity (I'm a child of Indian immigrants, not raised in a Christian household) and also new to this channel but this was an excellent video and I'm gonna observe Lent this year! However your supposed to do it, I don't really know lol.
I've been doing OMAD (one meal a day) intermittent fasting for quite a while so I'm down to fast!!
Edit: at 7:00 you say to kick off Lent by going over those parables of Jesus. I'll be sure to do that!
May God bless you and direct you, dear one. Have no worry - many of us (myself included) have been raised in circumstances that are far removed from Christianity. I grew up in a Communist state, and yet Christ found a way to touch even my sinful heart. Keep moving forward; make the small slow steps that you can make, and Christ will do the running for you.
I'm so happy you have become a Christian! God bless you my new family member xxx
@@mullmonastery Thanks I appreciate the encouraging words! 😀🙏
@@robynmarler3839 Thanks Robyn :D very glad to be here
Glory to God! if you're curious about the fasting/Scripture reading schedule and Lenten traditions that Fr. Seraphim mentioned, these can be found at your nearest Orthodox Christian Church, or there are some resources online. There is too much to explain about Orthodox Christianity, and Lent in particular, for me to put in one comment, but I will mention that this is the historical and sanctified Church of the Apostles that was created at the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Church is not denominational; She is pre-denominational. Fr. Seraphim is a monastic priest at the Mull Monastery in the Hebrides, Scotland.
As an adult convert, I can say that you are in the right place, and are certainly welcome in any of our churches. God bless! :)
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
I feel so awful after this video, because I'm constantly there in my sins, and I think it's the worst sin I commit, even above my sins of lust; that I assume that "oh, I've sinned, but God will forgive me if I go to confession, so I might as well indulge and get it out of my system."
I just feel so horrible.
May the lord prepare us for the period of repentance that is lent. The fear of coming out of lent the exact same person as one enters is overwhelming at times .
May the lord search our hearts and see if there’s any wicked way and lead us to the way everlasting. May He accept our tiny Lenten offerings and by His grace change us.
Thank you for the message today of hope and true repentance
Amen, dear Amira, amen. Often, change comes in manners we do not expect, and Christ uses 'tools' we do not expect. Just hold on to your faith, your patience and your determination to do all that is in your power. Once you have reached that limit, Christ will do the rest. May we all be blessed, dear one.
@@mullmonastery
Thank you dear father for taking the time to write back . I needed to hear those words . God bless you 🙏.
By Gods grace and In Him , I will try to follow your words. Pray for us 🙏
God bless you dear Father for those powerful words of reminder against our all too easy presumption of entitlement to salvation. As St. Augustine wrote, and as you put it so succinctly in your own words, “Do not despair; one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned.”
You are hitting every bar in the "things I take too literally and proceed to incessantly worry about" category. Thank you so much.
Thankyou for answering our email. I really appreciate that. I have learnt from my spiritual father that it is only to persist in the unforgivable sin is unforgivable.
I hope my friend who is a Calvinist will hear this message and find insight.
That is correct, dear Christopher. To persist in the sin makes it unforgivable.
Dear Father Seraphim,
I am new to the Orthodox Faith, and have only recently accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I am 51 years old, and I fear that I will die without given the chance to confess my sins, to be baptized. I have done horrible acts throughout my life, and am afraid that it may be too late for me to be forgiven.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. You have helped me immensely.
God bless,
Raphael.
Do not despair, the Lord is with you, he loves you, and he knows you. He will be compassionate and merciful to those who draw near to him in humble trust, he turns away nobody. Have total faith in God, and in the parts of you that are of God, that part of you that is love, and who rests in God.
We get to participate, yet we get stuck. Stuck in selfishness, condemnation, and that keeps me stuck in repetitive sin. The more active I am in my spiritual life, the less I sin, the despair and condemnation fall off. The more I have a heart to be desperately closer to Him.
This was a completely lovely sermon. It contained a lot of advice for my soul, needed advice to ascertain if I am keeping my feet on the road to salvation. It is difficult to know if you have no person to help you, and, you are trying to evaluate yourself. You Father, opened up your heart once again and revealed your love for your sheep and your Savior. I had asked many people in my life what is the unforgiveable sin. I received various answers. Today I received the proper answer. This was a perfectly appointed teaching to start pondering before Lent. I feel relieved after listening. God Bless you my Dear Father Aldea, for giving us another teaching full of wisdom and spoken with gentleness and love.
That is so kind of you, dear Rema. May God bless us all, may we all remain open to learn from each other what Christ speaks through us.
@@mullmonastery I believe He speaks all knowledge through you Father.
Anyone in hell has chosen to be there. Those who truly love to dominate and exploit others, who take joy in sadism and so on, cannot abide in the atmosphere in the heavens; they run from it to a place where they can be what the truly want.
I did some really dumb things in my 20s for a thrill… to impress my atheist friends who didn’t care about me… I pray every night to repent.
I fell into sin and felt that I was lost for yrs. I've been drawn back to the cross and I've been led to the orthodox faith of which I knew nothing before. I first came to Christ through the Word and then fell into sin for 14 yrs. I felt damned. But almost 3 years ago I was able to come before the cross and seek Him, I've been given a new heart. I was in serious sin. I felt I was not able to come back to Christ. But now, I no longer steal, I no longer long to kill as I did. I was so far gone I was sick 😢. I've been given a heart that longs for Christ constantly and my sin has tormented me. That depth is what I was in and still am. I know I'm not worthy of anything and what I have done is so terrible 😢 that it tore my heart and I still bleed from it. But in this searching Him out, in hopes that against all odds He might have mercy on me. That in hope against all odds that I might have been kept from committing the unforgivable sin and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I pray 🙏 I might somehow be given the grace to pursue Christ in spirit and truth.
And in part, I believe it because when I first found Christ and experienced the beauty of communion with His precious and beautiful Holy Spirit, it was through the Word, but all I knew was protestant teaching and Roman Catholic, which I couldn't agree with the pope being infallible. Yet the protestant church is so divided and i always knew it was wrong, and that the Scriptures do not disagree. I know there is one truth. It is the truth handed down from the beginning. And so being led into the orthodox teaching has been healing to me. And because I've been led to this, knowing that the Father draws us to the Son, it is not of our self that we are drawn but it is Christ who chooses us. So I have found a hope dawning within me that I may be able to come to the throne of grace. I've felt so unworthy to even come to Him in prayer, for yrs. And these last 3 yrs. The longing that is so deep I am able to only seek Him. Even with the sin I have, that I despise and with all I've done, it is as though a dawn is coming within me and the Sun, is the Son. I feel like I was in the darkest hrs before the dawn. But in truth, i know that Christ loce is above and beyond our comprehension, but my sin was so heavy I felt I wouldn't be forgiven. Though even in those yrs. of debauchery I still longed to be in Christ Jesus and felt only despair in my sins. I never doubt Christ, it is myself that i despise and doubt, knowing how unworthy I have only proven to be..😢 and in truth, Christ alone is worthy, and whether or not I make it into the Gateway of heaven, i will worshio His Holy name and i will continue to strive to grow closer to Him amd strive towards the goal. And i will continue to tell others of His love and His mercy and of our need for Him. Hoping that I might be a dog in the dog house on the very outer portions of the kingdom of heaven and receive the scraps from the table 🙏 and I will kiss His feet if He permits it. But even if I have no hope, I will still strive to serve Him and all of you who are within the body. And love all of those who I encounter. I've done so much bad that my good could never outweigh the bad that I've done. But still I will hope, and I will pray, and i will strive, and I will humbly learn the way of orthodoxy. And I pray the Lord will grace me with the ability to pursue this out in Him, and that He will uphold me to be able to do this in all of my weaknesses. I have been humbled in a very major way. And for that, I give God praise, and God is glorified in that along with all things. For all is to His glory. Amen. God bless you brother 🙏 🙌 ❤️ in the precious and mighty name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
Thankyou father ,I feel like I'm struggling alot. I feel I know inside that the faith is real but in my head theres this confusion which almost makes me feel like I'm in some kind of spiritual battle. I feel I am also struggling alot with sin.
We all are and we all do, Lisa. We are all sinners in battle.
Thats the Christian life; struggling. We all must struggle with sin, and there are two elements to struggle. One is the failure: we can think "why is this so hard? Why must I struggle? It should be easy!" But there is also the element of attempt. If you werent trying, there would be no struggle! "Well, I may not understand why it is difficult, but I accept that it is, and I will do what I can to fight. Most importantly, when I fail I must get up again, repent and start striding back towards Christ with a new resolve." So keep struggling Lisa. As Father said in a comment; we do the small steps and Christ does the sprinting! The Father of the prodigal son runs out to meet him from a long way off. God bless you and your holy struggles.
Dear Lisa, as Mike said above, we are all struggling. This is not a sign that you are failing, this is a sign that you are joining the Body of Christ - we all struggle, because we are all opposed and purposely thrown into confusion by the evil one. You are a sister in Christ of the one who cried 'I believe, Lord! Help my unbelief' - hold on to the seed of faith in your heart and it will continue to grow and it will bring forth fruit at the right time.
Good to see other people are noticing what is happening nowadays
I think that the most important take-away of your talk was defining the "balancing act" between despair and entitledness, and pinpointing both extremes as the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit. I am taking note of that and hopefully sharing it with others.
That is right, my dear Barbara. If I could convey that, glory be to God!
I thank God for your instructions ❤️
thank you so much father for your videos they have always been very useful and insightful to me. I want to ask you please to pray for the people in Turkey and Syria as a devastating earthquake hit. I'm following you from Syria please if you can send us a message of comfort and faith as the suffering and pain we live feels too heavy to bear. I ask your prayers all sisters and brothers 🙏🏻🙏🏻 Thank you father!
Dear Maria, I am so sorry for the pain you are going through. I am so sorry for the years of nightmarish pain your nation has suffered. Syria has give Christianity some of the most powerful, beautiful and loving Saints the Church has ever known - St Isaac and St Ephrem above all. May you grown in your faith through it all. May you grown in your love and compassion as you witness all that pain. And may Christ plant a seed of His Love in your heart to protect you from all evil and to guide you to His Light. We pray for you. Please pray for us. In our prayer we are one.
@@mullmonastery thank you so much father for your words and prayers 🙏🏻🙏🏻 thank you
Normally the topic of the unpardonable sin would bring me despair, but this video has left me with a sense of peace that God has me on the right track in the long-term
Thank you for this
This finally makes sense to me. I have always denied the unforgivable sins any merit because God can do anything. However, if I live in sin while asking for grace and forgiveness and thinking that i will be covered for the same sin, that can not be forgiven because the sin continues. It has nothing to do with the Gathers desire to forgive me. I would not be forgivable because i would not be positioning myself to receive forgiveness. I am experiencing something similar with family. now,. Praise Jesus.
It seems that you know me and that you gave this lesson for me. Truly inspired by the Holy Spirit. I am thinking of becoming a monk, giving my life entirely to Christ. Pray to the Holy Spirit to give me discernment.
Father, your words are gifts from God, May He Bless You Too.
I just realized what I said is an Unforgivable Sin. LORD Have Mercy 🙏
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom
Dear Fr Seraphim, thank you so very much for this very timely video & your exposition on entitlement ( so evident in society today & difficult to throw off) & your call to hope in God's freely given gifts of love self-sacrificing, to humility & true repentance as we keep before us both ends of the spectrum. I'm not wording this very well. At this moment i am feeling overwhelmed by the suffering of so many people both in my own country NZ from horrific floods completely destroying homes & that of the people in Turkey/Syria as a result of the earthquakes & the ongoing war in the Ukraine, with the loss of so many lives. Perhaps you could develop a session on how we can, in our prayers & small selfsacrificing acts..., have hope & help others struggling to connect with God when in the depths of their pain & suffering they are struggling to find God.
May God continue to bless you Fr Seraphim, and shower you with spiritual fortitude as you give of yourself & help so many of us with the wisdom we crave and you share so beautifully. Blessings & assurance of my prayers. From Jenny in Dunedin NZ.
Do what you can (if there is anything you can do) to help in a practical way, dear one. If not, light a candle for those people. Wake up at night, when the torrents of thoughts and worries are asleep, and stand before an icon with a lit candle - there is no need to pray with words if you can find none or if you are too tired: just stand there, with a burning candle, like a burning candle and pray for the people who are under those collapsed buildings, those who have died and are now standing before Christ, those whom they left behind. Burn for them as a living prayer and Christ will receive the sacrifice of your heart, dear one.
@@mullmonastery Thank you, dear Fr Seraphim for your response to my comment; so very practical as ever. Yes, I shall light a candle before my icons & stand as a burning candle with Christ the Light of the World beside as all these images pass before me. The northern part of nz is currently in the throes of a destructive cyclone which has been passing over the land for 2 days now. Thank you for your prayers & encouragement in this time when one clings to hope for others while at the same time can feel useless in the enormity of it all. Yet our prayers & small acts are never useless in the sight of God. Be greatly blessed dear Fr Seraphim & thank you from the depths of my heart. It has just turned 7am here in nz- 14th February.
This really resonates. Beautiful description. Thank you.
I have put down chewing tobacco for Lent & pray I can complete this & quit for good. All I want is to be close to Jesus & support my family. My wife has finally woken up and realize we are in perilous times, but with Lord Jesus we can get thru anything. I notice many people wanting genuine relationship with God & I pray they get it, no amount of money can buy the feeling of being "right with God" (as my old priest use to say). Jesus, and Mama Mary, are my 2 go tos. Sometimes I have to shut myself up cause when alone I talk to Them nonstop. God Bless you all with the peace of Jesus.
I'm a fairly new Christian and am doing my first fast right now and I wasn't even sure when Lent was. I feel like God put it on my spirit to do so 🙏
Only God knows what a struggle it is for me to be close to his vision of what I’m supposed to be . Whether it is because of my innate character or circumstances I do not know .. but I very much struggle a lot
I am from a non Christian background, my whole family is Muslim and everyone around me in my social circle - friends and colleagues -is an atheist. I cannot show or practice my faith openly without causing great scandal or offence.
I also live in the world and have a proclivity for worldly things. I come from a privileged background, dream of a family , nice house and nice life - my entire life I was working and was pushed to work for that and it’s what is expected of me.
To maintain a life of prayer and commitment to God in a manner that is righteous and genuine but also not to cut ties or cause offence to my parents and loved ones is the biggest cross I will have to carry in this life. This may be nothing compared to what other people have to go through and what challenges fall before them but even this relatively small burden feels impossible for me to carry.
Please pray for me father for I don’t want my heart to grow cold towards God and faith and I want to be saved
Thank you for sharing this with us. 🙏
Isaiah 55:8-9"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts"
This is a good reminder of the extent of God’s mercy. Nothing can separate us from God’s love, especially if we truly and earnestly desire to love Him in turn
1. Despair and abandon
2. spiritual abuse by entitalment
3. mocking of Jesus life
Hope and repentance
Comment if I forgot a detail or like to add further detail
Please forgive me our LORD please please please please please
this space is genuinely humble. My great need rn
You have been granted, dear Fr Seraphim, to put into words and bring to surface the deepest longings of my heart. Now you have more fully opened up my understanding of the prize (and the opposite), the striving somehow becomes more purposeful and worthwhile. O lazy me for all the years I have wasted, may God have mercy.
What is behind us is almost irrelevant, dear Pat. We shall be judged in the state we shall be found - if you are found standing in your faith, this is how you will enter the Kingdom. There are all those beautiful stories of the Saints who lived in the deepest sin but found the grace to repent the day before their death and they found their salvation. The first among them is the Good Thief - one who confesses himself that he deserves to die on the cross, and yet he is the first human being to enter Paradise. The Tradition of the Church collects these stories for us because we share a common humanity and they can be of extraordinary help to us.
O the love and mercy of God, boundless beyond my measly comprehension, a tiny peek is overwhelming!
Please pray for me, Father! If you ever come to Japan please let me know!.
I seem to constantly give into my passions. I hate them after having done them, yet I don't seem to hate them enough to stop doing them. I feel lost. It seems to me that to a degree, I have done both unforgivable sins you have described. Therefore, if unforgivable, am I now doomed? I am sorry, Father, for it seems I have failed horribly. I feel constantly bad as I dont seem to pray enough, I can't seem to stick to fasting, and my passions rule my life. I try to change, but I fall on my face all the time. I fail and fail. Maybe my pride is so great that I will never see success. Maybe my sins are unforgivable. I just dont want to give up if there is a chance that I may have a scrap from the table. Please forgive me a sinner, and if you are willing, pray for my soul
Youve said everything how i feel.... One day at a time. Give praise and thanks to the Lord and feel alright
Your true Christian God bless you by venkatesh in🇮🇳
Thank you so much for this vital message fr Seraphim 🙏☦️
Bless you Father...
Thank you Father Seraphim. God bless you and all those close to you as well
Thanks. Same to you. God bless you.
Thank you and bless you for your spiritual help 😊🙏🙏
Amen xxx
Thank you Father so very much for sharing in such a firm, no uncertain terms manner what we all need to strive to do during this year’s Lent period and beyond, if we want to have any hope of being judged worthy enough to pass through the narrow gate into heaven and ever lasting happiness with our Dear Lord Jesus Christ Son of The Living God.💫
🙏🙏🙏
Father, the Icon behind you is beautiful
Thank you Father
Can't believe it's Friday again, good to join you.
Father! Thank you! ❤️ 🤗
Thank You All Powerful Lord Jesus Christ for Paying for All my Sins Thank You Jesus For Shedding Every Last Drop of Your Perfect Redeeming Innocent Blood For The Forgiveness Full Remission of All my Sins Thank You Jesus For Dying in my place on The Cross ✝️ ❤To Pay for All my Sins as The Perfect Sacrifice because You Have No Sin Thank You for Being Buried Thank You Jesus for COMING BACK ALIVE 3 Days After Your Death because You Are The Son of God and God At The Same Time!!! I LOVE You Heavenly Father ABBA I LOVE You Jesus I LOVE You Holy Spirit Not 3 Different Gods But The 1 The Only True Living GOD Most High Revealed to us in 3 Ways ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤she who is Forgiven Much LOVES Much!!!!
Grazie..
Thank you Father, deep words. I am reading the Canon of repentens already, preparation for the Great Lent. ❤️ asking your blessings!
Thank you Father. Thank you for praying for all the Christians in the world.
We definitely need it.
Thank you Father for this timely reminder. I so often go into lent with no idea of what I am going to do and end up achieving nothing at the end of it. This year is going to be different!
May God bless that, dear Deirdre!
I entrust myself to You,Lord,with all THOSE I love.Protect us under the shield of Your unfading love.Comfort us,and GIVE me more Time to repent.💔🙏
This was the right message for me to hear today
I like the idea of Lent and fasting in particular. The practice of Lent itself seems healthy for the body, mind and soul.
Thank you very much sir 🙏 ❤. I am from India love your videos and teachings
Thank you 🙏 God Bless you Seraphim.
I say that in my last statement, I spoke on what I know in knowledge, but knowledge puffs up. It is love that edifies. I do truly feel I was in a place of that place of sin. Not that I wanted to be, I felt that I was given over to my own devices ... 😢 i hope and pray that I am not guilty of those things. I truly love God. And I truly fear God. Never have I felt I could just do as I pleased in this flesh, and I never felt anything was impossible for God, it was my own self that I doubted and my own worthiness of such a love. I hope and pray that in His mercy i was kept from actually committing that sin!!!! Oh Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me please 🙏 😢 im such a sinner God 🙏 forgive me for my doubts 🙏 😔 for you are not to be doubted Lord, i do not doubt you Lord. It is I myself who i place no faith in. Please forgive me my wrongs, for they are many😢... bless your Holy Name.
Fr. Seraphim, thank you for such clarity. It talks directly to my heart. I'm a Catholic but it is beautiful to see how close we are to our Orthodox brethren.
Thank you for your teaching.
Amen, thanks be to God 💝
Great commentary; thank you
Tough teaching but i needed to hear it.
Father your prayers. Thank you for this message
ive been feeling so confused and my poor health contributes to it, i'm constantly struggling so much with my problems that frequently i forget that getting closer to God is the most important thing that i need to do.
Beautiful Father thank you
Amen Father. Thank you for your time and openness.
God Bless everyone and thank you Father for this lesson, it’s helping more than you know. ❤️🙏
Thank you father Seraphim. truly this video has enlightened me
Thank you dear father...
Father thank you and God Bless you for your videos. Praying for you and your vocation. Please remember our Turkish brothers and sisters in your prayers and those who feel abandoned and lost by things out of their control. ❤🙏
We should all be humbled by their experience, my dear Kevin, and embrace them with our prayer and any practical need we may offer.
Father i have fallen, i'm conscious of that but i can't comunicate with Jesus. Have Mercy on me.
All will be well, my dear one. Bow your head before Him and ask for forgiveness. Make a promise to do your best not to repeat the sin and He will give you the grace to move forward. Just be honest in your desire to never fall again, even if this has happened a thounsand times before. Promise to try your absolute best (this is in your power), but do not promise not sin again (this is in Christ's power).
@@mullmonastery Thank you so much Father Seraphim. I really appreciate your answer.
Praise to you Lord, Jesus Christ
But you DO need to be good to remain on the earth my friends ❤
Father you are a blessing
Pray for me
God bless you 🙏
You have covered more than imaginable
father, pray for me, God bless.
I'm 60 and have always wanted to know what are the sins against The Holy Spirit, I've had so many different meanings but this make sense to my heart. God bless you and all your viewers. Chris from Australia
God bless you my brother. You are truly a gift to all us who are struggling for our salvation. Thank you
We are all struggling, dear Clark - myself more than all. But we must all move forward because there is no Life outside Christ, no Life in the darkness of sin we have left behind. So we move forward; slowly, painfully at times, but forward.
Lord have Mercy. Pray for my Girlfriend and I. She is not Orthodox but is I treated. Her name is Addie
Please never stop making these videos.
Thank you Father! ☦️
God Bless you and the Brothers and Sisters of the Monastery. 🙏🏻
Father bless please.
Thank U so much my dear! Verry helpful! God bless you and much love from Sweden 🇸🇪💟✝️💟
God bless Father for this message and the previous on the reset of my spiritual life. Somehow God, through my Guardian Angel, is pushing me to do this hard reset. There are signs that this will be a special Lent and I need to take the battle very serious and it will be a hard one. My demons already entered the battlefield, doing their thing, and I can only scream from the depths of my heart *Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner!*
God bless you, again, and again, and again!☦
Thank you Father Serafim , in Jesus our King we hope and prayer to forgive our sins and guide us to eternal salvation. 🙏🙏🙏. Blessings from Armenia
Blessings Father .
Thank you for your sharing of fantastic information to help us all along the path to salvation
Powerful. God bless you
You are a great preacher.
Fr. Seraphim, thank you for all the videos you make. Glory be to God.