UOC Primate: People tend to think life depends solely on their desire. This is wrong

People possess various amenities, granted by God. It was said by His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kiev and all Ukraine Onuphry during his Sunday sermon and called on believers to improve themselves, according to the UOC Information and Education Department.

The Archpastor says a human is obliged to God’s mercifulness for the very fact of his/her existence. “The Lord created each of us, having endowed us with abilities and talents. Everything is moved by the act of God – this is the earthly grace all people live on,” noted the Primate.

He stressed it’s erroneous to believe we are masters of our life. “Sometimes people think everything in their life depends solely on their desire, yet it is wrong,” said His Beatitude. “We have health, talents and the life itself just because they are granted to us by the Lord. And a human should dispose of these gifts to do good deeds and glorify God by the way he/she lives.”

The main calling for each human is to become an heir of the Kingdom of Heaven, for this end God bestowed the bliss of eternal life to people.

«We lost this bliss when Adam made a sin. But the Savior returned it to us, when He was born into this world, suffered and resurrected,” continued Hid Beatitude. – This grace makes a human able to live eternally and experience such feelings as rejoice, peace and happiness even in his earthly life. This act of God sweetens the bitterness of our terrestrial trials and sorrows. Every human must be concerned about attaining this grace in the course of our life on the earth.”

Only by taking personal spiritual efforts can we acquire this Divine Grace. “The Lord did not say: “The Kingdom of Heaven is near you, take it.” He said instead: “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is near!” It means to be able to accept this grace of eternal life, which is gifted to a human when he/she tries to live according to the Commandments, when he/she tries to pray, shows humility before God and his neighbors, and performs acts of mercy,” underscored the Metropolitan.

He called on everybody to keep carefully all the gifts acquired: “It’s easy to lose divine grace. It can be lost due to even a bad thought.”

Metropolitan Onuphry recounted a story about a monk who condemned random people.

“There was a monk who was attaining this grace and could feel it inside. Divine grace made him capable of having love for all people, feeling glad to see them, praying for them. Once he saw the people with squalid appearance enter the church. He looked at them and said they were “scruffy” and immediately felt the grace was leaving him. He repented for a month to make his spiritual peace come back.”

The Primate emphasized one should live by the Commandments and not give in to adverse influences of this world in order to be saved.