On Saying the Jesus Prayer with Faith
You must believe that when you say the Jesus Prayer, you're united with the Father. It is almost as though you were incorporated into the Trinity. There could be all kinds of emotional impediments, especially after periods of dissipation, and there would even be intellectual resistance. That would correspond. to Jesus saying, "Why hast Thou forsaken Me?"(Mt 27:46;Mk 15:34) In some way He really judged that He was forsaken, and yet at the same time He was calling on the Father. Those words express that state where your whole human judgment would be that God had forsaken you, and yet when you say the Jesus Prayer, you realize that you can't even say the name of Jesus unless the Holy Spirit is moving you.(1Cor 12:3) So if you don't live by faith, you won't say the name of Jesus, especially when you feel forsaken.
COMMENT: What do you do when you see yourself not loving your neighbor?
When you're not loving your neighbor, it means that God wants you to see yourself as not loving him. God's worst enemy is "piety". Whenever He shows you a deficiency in yourself, He wants to convince you of your hopelessness in yourself so you’ll be more united in Him. That is why He said, "Without Me you can do nothing."(Jn 15:5) But as soon as you try to fix yourself up, you're denying His words and saying, oh yes I can!
The worst way to hide from God is behind a pious mask. That is why Jesus said, "Would that you were either hot or cold."(Rev 3:16) If you want to sin, sin; if you want to love God, love him. But don't try to convince yourself that you want what you don't want, because the whole point of the experience is that He is showing you that in yourself you don't want to be good.
You should be with God like a child at its mother's breast: contented with Him loving you. The whole point of being here in the morning is to realize that relationship, to realize you're being loved and to receive that love. Then when you work during the day, you will work in that spirit. You won't let yourself be carried away by anything that would break that relationship.
When you work, it is very easy to think you're doing something by yourself, but Jesus said, "Without Me you can do nothing."(Jn 15:5) So if you don't begin the day with that relationship, you will spend the whole day as if you were God, including making yourself good, which is the worst deception of all. One of the things you begin to experience when you practice the Prayer of the Heart is that the most important thing when you lose your peace is to come back right away, without trying to fix yourself up. If you don't come back right away, either it will get worse, or you’ll start to get anxious and neurotic trying to convince yourself you don't want what you do want, which is the very essence of neurosis. Whereas the truth is that in yourself you're fallen, and God is showing you that. And when you how that you're lost in yourself, you don't stay in yourself. That's a unique form of hypocrisy.
The practical resolution of everything is the Jesus Prayer, the Prayer of the Heart: the habit of continual recollection. If you really believe that in yourself you love sin, and then you don't stay united with Jesus and you're not vigilant, what can you expect? Either you’ll abandon yourself to sin or you’ll try to convince yourself you don't want what you do want; or, worst of all, you might try to convince yourself that you're virtuous!
There are any number of things related to this. The principle one is faith in yourself. Hardly anyone is ever told today to have faith in himself. This means that if you live by faith and you know that Christ is in you and you see yourself inclined to defects, you must believe that you have the life of God within you. When you don't want what you would want in yourself, you can't be separated from God. If you don't believe this, you are really believing that the devil is more powerful than God. But the truth is that God permits you to fall as a way of developing that fortitude of spirit, so that no matter how much you're attracted to evil, you know the power of Jesus in you is greater than the evil. When you live by faith you know that, and so you live peaceful and recollected.
But we always want the burden of our own goodness: look what I did, or look what I didn't do. So naturally when you begin to do this, that is, the Prayer of the Heart, you can't expect it to be perfect. You don't say, now this is it, and let the Jesus Prayer become your achievement. When you see that you have slipped away from this prayer, you go back, contented with being with Jesus now, not reflecting on how long you have been away.
There are two mistakes you can make: 1) not to use your mind at all in the way you should 2) to use your mind in such a way that knowledge becomes the end. I teach you that you should use your mind to understand things right. So ask yourself: how come I'm unhappy? You might conclude: I don't feel people love me very much. But then you would ask: why does my happiness depend on being loved by others? Apparently, I don't believe that I'm loved by God, and I don't believe this because I think I don't deserve to be. Then that reasoning would terminate in the realization that you were loved. What people did might bother you a little bit, but it would be superficial, it wouldn't destroy your happiness. God lets you see that you're not loved by others in order to make you content with Him alone. The truth is that if you got others to love you, you might forget about God.
The basic principle in a question like this would be: I have whatever I need. If God died to make me happy, I must be happy in any situation. If I'm not happy, it is because I don't believe in God's love. And that is a sin against faith! The essence of simplicity is to know you are what you are and not try to convince yourself you're someone else. The point for now is to realize how much your mind wanders when you try to stay with God. At that point, you don't say "my goodness!” you go back to Him because you know you have nothing else. That is what God loves, that simplicity. That is why He could love tax collectors and harlots (Mt 21:31f), but He couldn't love the Pharisees. Another thing that can bother you is when you become aware that even when you do go to Jesus, you're not going perfectly; and then you begin to plan how you can go perfectly. Forget it. Just remember that a mother doesn't mind changing dirty diapers, so don't try to change your own diapers. Go to Jesus the way you are. That is the way He wants you to go. And that is the way you will be convinced of His love.
You should meditate more on this than on anything else: the power that you have been given in faith, and the fact that you’ll never be separated from Christ unless you deliberately want to be. Giving yourself to God in the Prayer of the Heart should be the normal healthy Christian mentality.
COMMENT: What do you do when you see yourself not loving your neighbor?
When you're not loving your neighbor, it means that God wants you to see yourself as not loving him. God's worst enemy is "piety". Whenever He shows you a deficiency in yourself, He wants to convince you of your hopelessness in yourself so you’ll be more united in Him. That is why He said, "Without Me you can do nothing."(Jn 15:5) But as soon as you try to fix yourself up, you're denying His words and saying, oh yes I can!
The worst way to hide from God is behind a pious mask. That is why Jesus said, "Would that you were either hot or cold."(Rev 3:16) If you want to sin, sin; if you want to love God, love him. But don't try to convince yourself that you want what you don't want, because the whole point of the experience is that He is showing you that in yourself you don't want to be good.
You should be with God like a child at its mother's breast: contented with Him loving you. The whole point of being here in the morning is to realize that relationship, to realize you're being loved and to receive that love. Then when you work during the day, you will work in that spirit. You won't let yourself be carried away by anything that would break that relationship.
When you work, it is very easy to think you're doing something by yourself, but Jesus said, "Without Me you can do nothing."(Jn 15:5) So if you don't begin the day with that relationship, you will spend the whole day as if you were God, including making yourself good, which is the worst deception of all. One of the things you begin to experience when you practice the Prayer of the Heart is that the most important thing when you lose your peace is to come back right away, without trying to fix yourself up. If you don't come back right away, either it will get worse, or you’ll start to get anxious and neurotic trying to convince yourself you don't want what you do want, which is the very essence of neurosis. Whereas the truth is that in yourself you're fallen, and God is showing you that. And when you how that you're lost in yourself, you don't stay in yourself. That's a unique form of hypocrisy.
The practical resolution of everything is the Jesus Prayer, the Prayer of the Heart: the habit of continual recollection. If you really believe that in yourself you love sin, and then you don't stay united with Jesus and you're not vigilant, what can you expect? Either you’ll abandon yourself to sin or you’ll try to convince yourself you don't want what you do want; or, worst of all, you might try to convince yourself that you're virtuous!
There are any number of things related to this. The principle one is faith in yourself. Hardly anyone is ever told today to have faith in himself. This means that if you live by faith and you know that Christ is in you and you see yourself inclined to defects, you must believe that you have the life of God within you. When you don't want what you would want in yourself, you can't be separated from God. If you don't believe this, you are really believing that the devil is more powerful than God. But the truth is that God permits you to fall as a way of developing that fortitude of spirit, so that no matter how much you're attracted to evil, you know the power of Jesus in you is greater than the evil. When you live by faith you know that, and so you live peaceful and recollected.
But we always want the burden of our own goodness: look what I did, or look what I didn't do. So naturally when you begin to do this, that is, the Prayer of the Heart, you can't expect it to be perfect. You don't say, now this is it, and let the Jesus Prayer become your achievement. When you see that you have slipped away from this prayer, you go back, contented with being with Jesus now, not reflecting on how long you have been away.
There are two mistakes you can make: 1) not to use your mind at all in the way you should 2) to use your mind in such a way that knowledge becomes the end. I teach you that you should use your mind to understand things right. So ask yourself: how come I'm unhappy? You might conclude: I don't feel people love me very much. But then you would ask: why does my happiness depend on being loved by others? Apparently, I don't believe that I'm loved by God, and I don't believe this because I think I don't deserve to be. Then that reasoning would terminate in the realization that you were loved. What people did might bother you a little bit, but it would be superficial, it wouldn't destroy your happiness. God lets you see that you're not loved by others in order to make you content with Him alone. The truth is that if you got others to love you, you might forget about God.
The basic principle in a question like this would be: I have whatever I need. If God died to make me happy, I must be happy in any situation. If I'm not happy, it is because I don't believe in God's love. And that is a sin against faith! The essence of simplicity is to know you are what you are and not try to convince yourself you're someone else. The point for now is to realize how much your mind wanders when you try to stay with God. At that point, you don't say "my goodness!” you go back to Him because you know you have nothing else. That is what God loves, that simplicity. That is why He could love tax collectors and harlots (Mt 21:31f), but He couldn't love the Pharisees. Another thing that can bother you is when you become aware that even when you do go to Jesus, you're not going perfectly; and then you begin to plan how you can go perfectly. Forget it. Just remember that a mother doesn't mind changing dirty diapers, so don't try to change your own diapers. Go to Jesus the way you are. That is the way He wants you to go. And that is the way you will be convinced of His love.
You should meditate more on this than on anything else: the power that you have been given in faith, and the fact that you’ll never be separated from Christ unless you deliberately want to be. Giving yourself to God in the Prayer of the Heart should be the normal healthy Christian mentality.