Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Indication of the Way into the Kingdom of Heaven

Indication of the Way into the Kingdom of Heaven

Introduction

We were created to live on earth unlike animals who die and disappear with time, but with the high purpose to live with God —not for a hundred years or so—but for eternity!

Every individual instinctively strives for happiness. This desire has been implanted in our nature by the Creator Himself, and therefore it is not sinful. But it is important to understand that in this temporary life it is impossible to find full happiness, because that comes from God and cannot be attained without Him. Only He, who is the ultimate Good and the source of all good, can quench our thirst for happiness.

Material things can never wholly satisfy us. Indeed, we know from experience that every item we have desired has pleased us only for a short while. Then it became boring, and we started to desire something else. This process of satisfaction and boredom then repeated itself many times. The most striking example of unquenchable thirst for happiness was Solomon, the famous King of Israel, who lived around 1000 B.C. He was so rich that all the household utensils in his palaces were made of pure gold. He was so wise that kings and famous people from far away lands came to hear him. He was so famous that his foes trembled at the mere mention of his name. He could easily satisfy any of his wishes, and it seemed that there was no pleasure that he did not possess or could not obtain. But with all of this, Solomon could not find total happiness to the end of his life. He described his many years of searching for happiness and his continual disappointments in the book of Ecclesiastes, which he began with the following phrase: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity (Ecclesiastes 1:2).

Innumerable other wise people who were also successful in life came to the same conclusion. It seems that in the depth of our subconscious something reminds us that we are just wanderers on this earth and that our true happiness is not here but there, in that other and better world known as Paradise or the Heavenly Kingdom. Let man own the whole world and everything that is in it, yet all this will interest him for no more than a short period, while the immortal soul, thirsting for personal communication with God, will remain unsatisfied.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to this earth in order to return to us our lost capacity to spend eternity in the blissful presence of God. He revealed to people that all their evil lies in sin and that no one through their own efforts can overcome the evil within themselves and attain communion with God. Sin, ingrained in our nature since the fall, stands between us and God like a high wall. If the Son of God had not descended to us through His mercy for us, had not taken on our human nature, and had not by His death conquered sin, all mankind would have perished for ever! Now, thanks to Him, those who wish to cleanse themselves from evil can do so and return to God and obtain eternal bliss in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Now we will discuss in detail how you can achieve this aim. We will examine:
   Which benefits were granted to us by Our Lord Jesus Christ.
   How Jesus Christ lived on earth and suffered for us.
   Which path leads to the Kingdom of Heaven.
   How Jesus Christ helps us to walk along the path of salvation.






Click HERE to download a printable PDF file of the entire booklet Indication of the Way Into the Kingdom of Heaven, by St Innocent of Alaska

4 comments:

Sasha said...

I hope it's "to be continued"?... Will be expecting!

Ρωμανός ~ Romanós said...

Yes, every day at 12:30 AM I will post the next part, until the whole book is posted.

Jim Swindle said...

I had not heard of Saint Innocent of Alaska. I'm impressed by his biography and also by the bit of his writing that you posted.

Ρωμανός ~ Romanós said...

Jim, I hope you come back and read the entire tract written by St Innocent, as I will be posting one part of it each day for the rest of this week.

What will be interesting for many people is to see how similar the Orthodox faith is to the common evangelical understanding of the relationship between faith and works, and the all-sufficiency of the saving work of Christ.

St Innocent wrote the original tract in the Aleutian language, and that is how he evangelized the Aleut people in the early to mid 19th century. Because he was addressing a non-Western native American people, his explanations had to be very simple and clear. This tract proved to be so popular that it was quickly translated into the Russian language and went through several dozen editions before the Russian revolution shut down its publication.

I am posting this as part of my personal testimony, also an example of the Orthodox faith that I adhere to. So much can be mistaken for Orthodox Christianity, both inside and outside the Church, that it is always relevant to draw our attention to the sure and certain, and keep away from controversies and doubtful traditions.

I hope you, and all my visitors, will find The Indication helpful and wholesome reading as we enter the season of Advent.

Χριστός γεννάται δοξάσατε
Christós yennátai, dhoxásate!
Christ is born, glorify Him!