I have always thought of sin as something that invites demons into your soul. This is why sin makes you suffer. How many of us feel good about ourselves when we hold a grudge against someone and do not forgive them.
The cause of evil and sin is the advent of the five dominate vices within the soul - Ego, Lust, Anger, Attachment, Greed...you can consider these vices as the "influence" which enables us to perform sinful acts. These are foreign to the soul's original qualities, (Virtues) Purity, Peace, Love, Happiness, Humility and so on. The impressions of these vices are recorded within the soul, the Memory which in turn influences the Mind and Intellect. Consider it like a cycle of thoughts, impressions and influence. We souls are made in the image and likeness of God because firstly, souls are incorporeal, secondly we share the same faculties, Mind, Intellect, Subconscious Mind (Memory, Resolves) Thirdly the original qualities of the soul (Virtues) are Purity, Peace, Love, Happiness, Humility. The vices are born through Body Consciousness, which are totally responsible for evil and sin, whereas Soul Consciousness is drawing upon the virtues. So think of it as a battle between the souls internal virtues vs the external vices which have come to overthrow our inner kingdom! Over the centuries we have depicted these vices as the devil, Satan, fallen angels and Ravan, but in reality they are the vices within the soul that cause us to go against God's natural order.
Succinctly, everything God says and does for us and for all creation, and expects from us, is for his glory. When we glorify God appropriately, we are most human; we have returned closer to the restoration of the image and likeness of God with which we were originally created in Adam; our human-ness is most satisfied because this is for what our creator designed us. Anything that moves away from glorifying God is not that for which God created us, and it is a subhuman existence and life; and since everything in the universe was made to glorify God, anything that doesn't glorify God is sub-existing. This transformed my understanding of Romans 3:23. "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." This is a parallelism. Sin by definition is the failure to glorify God--the best concise, to the direct point, definition I've ever known of sin. And what does glorify God mean? It means to reveal him with the intent To emanate, shine forth, the perfections of the One being glorified, for the sake of that One receiving worship, adoration, praise, and Thanksgiving. This glory is given from our lips and by our imitation of God, particularly by imitating his incarnation, Jesus, who is the full revelation of God's glory (Jn. 1:1-18; 14:8-11)--from our hearts becoming like God's. And, of course, we are commanded to follow in the footsteps of Christ, to imitate him. What would be the summary explanation of what that means? John 17:4-6, which says that Jesus finished the work that was given him to do, which is to glorify the Father by manifesting the Father's Name (person, nature, character, perfection and attributes, works, purposes and goals) to man, so that by this glorification of the Father, mankind may come saved. In the Greek orthodox church, this is indicated by the word Theosis, a word which sums up what the Bible means by salvation in its fullness, as opposed to simply avoiding hell. In summary, sin is anything that cannot glorify God. That is the meaning of Romans 3:23.
Thank you, father!
Always a joy to listen the blessed words coming from Vladyka Irinei.
I have always thought of sin as something that invites demons into your soul. This is why sin makes you suffer. How many of us feel good about ourselves when we hold a grudge against someone and do not forgive them.
I love listening to his calming tone. 😌
We are not alone, God is with us ☦🙏❤
❤🕊🌠🙏✝GOD BLESS ☦🙏💒🌟❤💪
Truly practical
Very helpful father. Thank you
Beautiful ❤ thank you 🙏
It's curious that I was just asking this same question this past week.
To sin is to miss the mark.
❤❤❤
The cause of evil and sin is the advent of the five dominate vices within the soul - Ego, Lust, Anger, Attachment, Greed...you can consider these vices as the "influence" which enables us to perform sinful acts. These are foreign to the soul's original qualities, (Virtues) Purity, Peace, Love, Happiness, Humility and so on. The impressions of these vices are recorded within the soul, the Memory which in turn influences the Mind and Intellect. Consider it like a cycle of thoughts, impressions and influence. We souls are made in the image and likeness of God because firstly, souls are incorporeal, secondly we share the same faculties, Mind, Intellect, Subconscious Mind (Memory, Resolves) Thirdly the original qualities of the soul (Virtues) are Purity, Peace, Love, Happiness, Humility. The vices are born through Body Consciousness, which are totally responsible for evil and sin, whereas Soul Consciousness is drawing upon the virtues. So think of it as a battle between the souls internal virtues vs the external vices which have come to overthrow our inner kingdom! Over the centuries we have depicted these vices as the devil, Satan, fallen angels and Ravan, but in reality they are the vices within the soul that cause us to go against God's natural order.
Succinctly, everything God says and does for us and for all creation, and expects from us, is for his glory. When we glorify God appropriately, we are most human; we have returned closer to the restoration of the image and likeness of God with which we were originally created in Adam; our human-ness is most satisfied because this is for what our creator designed us. Anything that moves away from glorifying God is not that for which God created us, and it is a subhuman existence and life; and since everything in the universe was made to glorify God, anything that doesn't glorify God is sub-existing. This transformed my understanding of Romans 3:23. "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." This is a parallelism. Sin by definition is the failure to glorify God--the best concise, to the direct point, definition I've ever known of sin.
And what does glorify God mean? It means to reveal him with the intent To emanate, shine forth, the perfections of the One being glorified, for the sake of that One receiving worship, adoration, praise, and Thanksgiving. This glory is given from our lips and by our imitation of God, particularly by imitating his incarnation, Jesus, who is the full revelation of God's glory (Jn. 1:1-18; 14:8-11)--from our hearts becoming like God's.
And, of course, we are commanded to follow in the footsteps of Christ, to imitate him. What would be the summary explanation of what that means? John 17:4-6, which says that Jesus finished the work that was given him to do, which is to glorify the Father by manifesting the Father's Name (person, nature, character, perfection and attributes, works, purposes and goals) to man, so that by this glorification of the Father, mankind may come saved. In the Greek orthodox church, this is indicated by the word Theosis, a word which sums up what the Bible means by salvation in its fullness, as opposed to simply avoiding hell.
In summary, sin is anything that cannot glorify God. That is the meaning of Romans 3:23.
Whoa you talk exactly like that other orthodox guy on UA-cam with the beanie