To love Christ -means not to be a hireling, not to look upon a noble life as an enterprise or trade, but to be a true benefactor and to do everything only for the sake of love for God.
Interpretation
True love for Christ involves selflessness and devotion, rather than seeing faith as a transaction or obligation.
This quote emphasizes that genuine love for Christ goes beyond superficial acts or viewing faith as a job. Instead, it encourages believers to act out of pure love for God, becoming true benefactors who selflessly serve others without expecting anything in return.
In practice
In a sermon about serving others, this quote can inspire the congregation to act out of love rather than obligation.
No one has ever been accused for not providing ornaments, but for those who neglect their neighbour a hell awaits with an inextinguishable fire and torment in the company of the demons. Do not, therefore, adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother, for he is the most precious temple of all.
It is simply impossible to lead, without the aid of prayer, a virtuous life.
When we teach our children to be good, to be gentle, to be forgiving (all these are attributes of God), to be generous, to love their follow men, to regard this present age as nothing, we instill virtue in their souls, and reveal the image of God within them.
Abba Moses asked Abba Sylvanus, Can a person lay a new foundation every day? The old man replied, If you work hard, you can lay a new foundation every moment. Abba Pimen said, To throw yourself before God, not to measure your progress, to leave behind all self-will; these are the instruments for the work of the soul. The desire to rule is the mother of heresies.
I hear no one boast, that he hath a knowledge of the Scriptures, but that he owneth a Bible written in golden characters. And tell me then, what profiteth this? The Holy Scriptures were not given to us that we should enclose them in books, but that we should engrave them upon our hearts.
Prayer should be the means by which I, at all times, receive all that I need, and, for this reason, be my daily refuge, my daily consolation, my daily joy, my source of rich and inexhaustible joy in life.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then a thousand more.
So let it be a criterion if you follow the path of awareness, let love be the criterion. When your awareness suddenly blooms into love, know perfectly well that awareness has happened, SAMADHI has been achieved. If you follow the path of love, then let awareness function as a criterion, as a touchstone. When suddenly, from nowhere, at the very center of your love. a flame of awareness starts arising, know perfectly well... rejoice! You have come home.
Every story is a story about death. But perhaps, if we are lucky, our story about death is also a story about love.
Love changes everything. Days are longer, words mean more. Love changes everything. Pain is deeper than before. Love can turn your world around, and that world will last forever.
Peace before everything, God before anything,_x000D_ _x000D_ Love before anything, real before everything,_x000D_ _x000D_ Home before any place, shoot before anything,_x000D_ _x000D_ Style and state radiate, Love Power slay the hate.
Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, Love Divine; Love was born at Christmas; Star and angels gave the sign.
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