Thus, every situation and everything in it is “very good” for everyone and each one individually (for the king, and for the servant, and for the natives, who took less sin upon their soul – killed one less person, not sacrificing them to demons!). Therefore, glory to God for everyone and for everything, for His Love-Mercy to everyone and everything!!! And how can one not rejoice and give thanks, how not to strive with all one’s strength to please the Giver with service, fulfilling the will of the Giver, to love Him in return, to respond to the Gift with Thankfulness, to respond to Love with reciprocity! Here is the essence of Christianity – Eucharist-Thanksgiving – to Love (with God’s Love, the Holy Spirit) the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, to partake of the fullness of Love (the fullness of the Holy Spirit). Glory to You, God! Glory to You, God! Glory to You, God!
God is Love! Therefore, every action-energy of His is Love. The world is God’s love. Therefore, everything God does is a Gift (a selfless Gift)! Everything, absolutely everything – “good exceedingly” – is a Gift from God (a declaration of Love) to every created being. Three
things steal our happiness: sorrow for the past, anxiety for the future, and ingratitude for the present (see Part II)! Everything I am and everything I have, the entire universe, is God’s Generous Gift to me! So why then are we not joyful, why are we unhappy?! We perceive everything (for example, another person: a husband, wife, friend, children, parents) not as a gift, a present in our life, but as personal acquisition, as “mine,” as personal property (“mine,” “my right,” etc.). In life, you are happy only when you feel that you have gifts (= that you are loved). When you receive gifts, joy keeps you in an elevated mood (every moment is a Gift, and everything in it – countless gifts, the most appropriate and necessary, most essential for me here and now – God’s Loving Care). And we do not rejoice in another (husband, wife, children… and generally everything: the sun, weather, earth, rain, food, sleep… everything-everything) as a gift because we have not learned to say “thank you” to God (thank you, Eucharistó), we have not learned to look gratefully at the person (and everything) who is near us (at our neighbor (Luke 10:25-37)), we have not learned to stand before God with reverence and say: “How Good You are, Lord, thank You! I thank You! How wisely, with inexpressible Love, Grace, Tenderness, You create everything! I do not deserve this! Thank You! Lord, You have given me (unworthy, nothingness) this, and that! Glory to You, God! Glory to You, God! Glory to You, God!”
For those who have realized that God is Love, for Christians, the essence of their life is the Eucharist, Thanksgiving-Service to God, expressing love for God in everything. For a Christian, life is the Lord Jesus Christ (“it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”). Everything I do, I “must” do for Christ (the Desired One; the goal and essence of all conscious and unconscious desires is the Lord Jesus Christ; every person desires the best for themselves, happiness – Jesus Christ is the Desired One of all desires!). Whoever you are (married, monk), whatever you do – everything must be done for Christ, for God. Through what we do, we want to find Him, dedicate everything to Him in gratitude (Eucharist) for all known and unknown, for everything the Lord has given us to understand God’s Love – to accept into ourselves, our heart, our person God the Trinity, to become a temple of the fullness of the Holy Spirit!
If you do something for God, you do not cling to anything you do (to any service). I perform any deed for Christ, so for me the main thing is not the service-deed, but the One for whom I serve, for whom I do this! If You, Lord, want me to do this or that deed-service, I will carry it (with joy!) for You. My joy is not a deed for the sake of the deed (good deeds for the sake of good deeds, good for the sake of good – all this is done by pagans, they have many such “good” deeds!), but a deed for the sake of what You want. (A good deed is only that which is done for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the Lord, and not because the deed itself is good; deeds themselves are neutral, and they become good or not primarily from their motivations and fruits! A good deed is a deed done for the Lord and which bears the fruit of humility in the heart and, as a result, bears the fruits of the Holy Spirit!). Through the deed-service, I show love for the Lord (who said: He who loves Me keeps My commandments! Who does My will, and not just listens about the commandments!)! Therefore, if I know that the Lord wants me to Love Him through another service (to give up the one I like and carry another service), then I will love Him this way (joyfully fulfilling the new service, even if it does not please me in the flesh). For a Christian, the main thing is to Love Jesus Christ, regardless of how to Love Him! (“I do not seek My own will.” “As the Lord pleases, so it has happened. Blessed be the name of the Lord! Glory to You, God, glory to You!”). Therefore, one must be able to (learn to) give up one’s aspirations, renounce (renounce) one’s will (if circumstances do not turn out as we wish) and peacefully, to the glory of God, with thanksgiving accept the realities as they have unfolded…