St Peters Orthodox Church

Every soul since the Fall of man is crying out with the question, "Who am I? What is my true identity?" Underneath every thought, action, and pattern in our lives is the constant search for an answer to this question. And our lives experience either restlessness, agitation, and anxiety in the search for our most true self; or in this lifelong search, our souls will grow in greater peace and contentment throughout this life. What makes the difference in this experience? The answer is what we choose to make the source of the revelation and definition of our identity. Today we look at the possible sources and the impact they will have on our lives.

At the burning bush in Exodus 3 - 4, God tells Moses that he is to be the one to deliver God's people out of bondage. At the feeding of the multitude in the Gospel of St. Mark 8, Jesus tells His disciples that He has compassion for the people for they had not eaten for 3 days, and He wants to feed them. Both Moses and the disciples were faced with an impossible situation. And when our humanity is faced with the impossible our inadequacies, frailties, and lack comes to the surface. In both of these Scriptures, God asks only one thing of Moses in Exodus and the disciples in the Gospel, "What do you have?" They offered only what they had to God. And, even though what they had was not near enough to overcome the impossible, God filled all that was lacking with Himself and great wonders were accomplished for His glory and the benefit of mankind. God will do the same for and through us if we will just offer Him the little that we have.

On Mt. Tabor, the disciples fell asleep in the darkness of the deep hours of the night. When Christ was transfigured, the uncreated light of the glory of God illuminated everything and the darkness was overcome. That light awakened Peter, James, and John out of their slumber. As Christ's disciples, we are always invited to the mountain to worship Christ in Spirit and Truth; to behold Him in His glory, and to be illuminated as He reveals Himself more and more to us throughout our lives. As we receive His illumination, the darkness within us fades away and we are awakened from our spiritual slumber.

In the Gospel of St. Luke and chapter 5, we hear the account of the calling of the first disciples at the miraculous catch of fish. While we tend to focus on the miracle of the catch of fish being that which gave Peter, James, and John the faith to abandon everything and follow Christ; another look at this passage shows us that there was more of a progression to their experience of Christ that granted them the gift of great faith. First, they heard the words of life spoken by the Word of God which prepared their hearts to yearn for and receive more of Jesus; a yearning Christ is always delighted to fulfill. This is a progression of experience we are all invited into daily by the Savior Who loves our soul.

Jesus teaches us in the Gospel of St. Luke 6 that we are to "be merciful just as your Father is merciful." We are called and graced to ascend and become the very mercy of our Heavenly Father. But, what is His mercy? What does the mercy of God look like? Today we look upon the mercy of God revealed to us. And we acknowledge that the only hope we have of becoming mercy is to receive and experience the Divine mercy of God in our own lives.

July 10, 2022 - Christ dined and fellowshipped with the sinners. He came to seek and save that which was lost. When questioned about this He told the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. Each of these parables reveals the nature of Christ as the God Who delights in giving mercy and restoring all things lost to mankind back to His beloved mankind.

In the Gospel of St. Luke 14, a man stood up and loudly proclaimed, "Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the Kingdom of God!" Jesus then tells the Parable of the Great Banquet; the Divine and most gracious invitation to come to the table God has prepared; upon which are the benefits of healing for the soul, the forgiveness of sin, and eternal life. Today, hearing the voice of the Early Church Fathers, we see that Christ our God was speaking of the Eucharist in the context of the Divine Liturgy, the Kingdom of God realized and manifest so that we may taste and experience the joy and peace of Paradise in the eternal now.

The greatest of all virtues is set right before us on the first day of the Litrugical Season of Trinitytide; a season in which we consider how it is that we now can live as those filled with the Holy Spirit. Today, by considering both the Parable of the Rich Man & Lazarus as well as the writing of the Apostle John from 1 John 4, we see that it is only possible to become love if we have first truly experienced the outpouring of God's love into our lives daily. Living waters cannot flow out of us unless they are daily being received with in us from the Lord.

Many religions either believe in one god or multiple gods. Only Christianity holds to God being both One and Three persons at once. Today we are reminded that by gazing into this revelation God has given of Himself through prayer and fellowship with Him, can we be transformed by the brightness of the Divine Nature of God as He shares Himself with us. For we have a God Who delights in making Himself known.

Fire, wind, and water on the day of Pentecost. Three elements in God's creation utilized by God to show precisely what was fulfilled on this day for the salvation of mankind. But these elements also tell us something so very important about our new and true identity as Christians. They also tell us of our great responsibility in this world by the will and desire of God.

When Christ encountered the rich man at the Temple, Christ gave us an example of what biblical love truly looks like. More than ever, we need to ensure we are living our lives in love towards others; not with empty sentimentality nor harsh judgements but with loving actions that open up a space for others to draw closer to God.

What a wonder is the Ascension of Christ our God as He returns to the Father in Paradise. The angels who always had beheld God in Paradise are even in wonder at what they see when Christ Ascended. The Ascension is the final movement of the finished work and ministry of the Incarnation. For as Christ Ascended, He kept our humanity within Himself eternally making the impassible way to Paradise now passible through Himself. Now, all mankind has the opportunity to return to Paradise; and only because Christ Ascended.

Jesus says in the Gospel of St. John chapter 16, "Whatever you ask the Father in My Name, He will give you." But what does it mean to ask in the Name of Jesus? The answer to that question is critical to understanding our role of joining with Christ's intercession for the life and salvation of the world as His Kingdom of Priests.

In our study thus far, we have been looking at the role of the Priesthood of All Believers and mainly focusing on the aspect of our Priesthood that faces God representing and interceding for the world before Him. In this last session, we now focus on representing God to this present age. We ascend the mountain to fellowship with God, receive from Him, learn of Him, and be healed and transformed by Him. We descend the mountain to represent God and manifest His Kingdom before all of those around us. In this session, we look at the life of Moses in this very role seeking to see how Moses greatly succeeded in representing God to His people. But we also have a look at how Moses failed in misrepresenting God to the people. We must see this particularly in our age. For the misrepresentation of God to man will move man further away from salvation and have implications in our own lives.

In the Gospel of St. John Chapter 16, Jesus tells His disciples that it would be to their advantage that He leave them and return to the Father. For then the Holy Spirit could come. And as we would be granted the Holy Spirit, we would be granted the mind of Christ. The Holy Spirit is given to us that we may be transformed within our souls to grow to love what God loves and have no taste for what He detests. As our passions and affections become His, we experience His joy even when the world crashes in against us.

There is a relational rhythm to our fellowship with Christ in prayer. A helpful acronym for this rhythm is ACTIP (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Intercession, Petition). This lesson takes us through each of these movements in the rhythm of prayer and the experience of God that can be had by this fellowship.

When Christ was with His disciples between the Resurrection and Ascension, He was preparing them for His return to the Father. He told them that in this life they will weep and lament with sorrow, but that their sorrow would be turned to joy. In this life, we who are His disciples will suffer in a fallen world in many different ways. But the reality of Christ's presence in our lives and our ability to fellowship with our Lord grants us a joy that is unexplainable.

Christ our God is our Great High Priest Who intercedes for us and is our Mediator and Advocate. He stands before the Father interceding for the souls of mankind. As His Priesthood, we are ordained for and invited into a participation in Christ's ministry of this blessed intercession for the life of the world. Today we examine closely this role we have been given to stand with Christ between the Father and the souls of mankind. This is true intercession as the priesthood of all believers.

Jesus says in the Gospel of St. John 10, "I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own as the Father knows Me and I know the Father." Our Lord is revealing to us that we can know God with the same intimacy of knowing as the Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father. What is this incredible revelation Christ is giving to His disciples? Today we look at the very relationship the Good Shepherd desires with His sheep.

All Christians are "priests" and the last thing Satan wants is for Christians to live out their vocation as this Holy Priesthood. When we truly walk in our priesthood our enemy considers us dangerous and we become a target. But we have been given Divine power from Christ our Great High Priest to endure and walk in the most important role He has ordained for us to walk in within His Kingdom.