On the chief virtue of the Christian
The holy Apostle Paul says that Love is the greatest of the virtues: "Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away" (1 Cor. 13:8, King James Version). Faith and hope are not sufficient to raise a man to the highest degree of the moral state, for the devils also believe and tremble (Jas. 2:19). Besides this, faith and hope cease when those good things appear which are the object of faith and hope. The Apostle Paul explained it thus: "hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?" (Rom. 8:24, King James Version), "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1, King James Version). Therefore faith and hope cease when a man sees with his own eyes the One in whom he believed, and all his hopes, longings and expectations are fulfilled, while love then grows especially and becomes the strongest. Therefore the chief condition for attaining the Kingdom of Heaven is sincere love for God and for men, the ardent desire and striving of a man's soul to be united with God as with the highest good and the very highest object of desires and strivings. "If such is the power of love," says Saint John Chrysostom, "then we must pursue it and strive after it mightily: so does it fly away from us, and so many are the hindrances to striving after it! Therefore we need great efforts to attain it. To express this, the Apostle Paul did not say: seek love, but: 'Follow after charity' (1 Cor. 14:1, King James Version), urging us on and enkindling us to attain it."
If through faith the Christian enters into the mysteries of divine knowledge, then through love he enters into the mysteries of divine life. The Apostle John the Theologian says: "he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him" (1 John 4:16, King James Version). In such a state the higher mysteries of knowledge are opened to a man, since in love his spirit becomes open to the actions of God. The holy fathers teach that love is manifested in the life of the Christian in the virtues of reverence, obedience, thankfulness, zeal for the glory of God and remembrance of God. Let us consider these properties of true love for God in more detail.
Reverence, or filial fear
The fear of God is a sacred dread of doing anything unworthy and sinful before the great and beloved God. Loving someone sincerely, we try in every way not to offend him in anything. So long as a man stands upon the lower degree of the moral state, so long is there mixed into the motives of his moral activity a servile fear, that is, the dread of punishments. This fear gives rise to torment, anxiety, disquiet. And all the more does a vicious man suffer such torment, living under the perpetual fear of God's punishment and experiencing the disquiet of conscience (Luke 19:21). But the more the Christian is perfected in the moral life and in love for God, the more he draws near to Him and is united with Him, the more his fear before God becomes a filial reverence, bringing not torment but peace into the soul. As Saint Anthony the Great said: "Before I feared God, now I love Him".
Obedience
The Lord Jesus Christ Himself said to His disciples at the Mystical Supper: "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (John 14:23, King James Version). If we felt in our heart even the sweetest feelings of love and assured others of it in the warmest words, but had no corresponding deeds, then we should be in self-deception, thinking that we have true love. He who truly loves acts with self-sacrifice.
Thankfulness
Thankfulness is gratitude for benefits received, joined with the need to prove that gratitude in deed. Thankfulness to God is expressed by prayer, by the good use of the gifts that are sent, by the keeping of the commandments, by doing good to one's neighbours.
Zeal for the glory of God
To honour God means to acknowledge with one's whole conduct the greatness and glory of God and to express one's testimony of subjection to and dependence upon God. We venerate and glorify God with prayers and songs of praise, with the building and adorning of the churches of God, with many liturgical rites, with the keeping of feast days in holiness. To the worship of God belongs also zeal for the honour and glory of God. The Christian cannot remain indifferent when the name of his heavenly Father is reviled, by words or by deeds. Yet, in rising to the defence of the faith and of the glory of God, it is needful to keep meekness and humility, showing love even to those to whom the Truth is unknown. The second side of zeal for God is the spreading among men of true knowledge of God and of good morals by preaching and by the example of one's own life, that the name of God may be hallowed not only in us, and His kingdom come not only to us, but to all.
Remembrance of God
It consists in withdrawing more often from the world and its diversions and in concentrating one's thoughts upon God. And even amid labours and earthly occupations the true Christian prays without ceasing (Thess. 5:17). The Psalmist calls him blessed whose will is in the law of the Lord and who meditates upon His law day and night (Ps. 1:2–4; 118:1–11). Jesus the son of Sirach says: "Let thy mind be upon the ordinances of the Lord, and meditate continually in his commandments: he shall establish thine heart, and give thee wisdom at thine own desire" (6:37, King James Version).
In order to receive the gift of Love, it is necessary to overcome in oneself those sins which are contrary to this virtue. The sins against love for God are these: self-love, excessive love for the creature at the expense of love for the Creator, slothfulness and forgetfulness of God, ingratitude towards God, false zeal for God or fanaticism, hatred of God and of men. Until a man overcomes these obstacles, he will not be able to attain the chief goal of his existence — union with God and salvation in eternity.
Self-love (or egoism) is shown in this, that a man shuts himself up within the circle of his own interests and aims and sets in the first place in life only his own profit and advantage, and not the glory of God and love for his neighbour. The centre around which his whole life revolves is not God, but his own "I". Such a man, evidently, lacks the self-denial and disinterestedness without which there can be no true service of God and no truly moral life.
Another cause by which the virtue of love becomes unattainable for us is excessive love for the creature at the expense of love for the Creator. Such a perverted love for the world is inevitably bound up with a man's estrangement from God and with an egoistic love for himself. Having fallen away from God, a man cleaves with his heart to the pleasures of the fallen world, in which everything favours the egoistic disposition, the satisfying of lust and the pride of life. Love for the world is right and lawful only in that case when we love the world not as an independent being having its end in itself, but as the creation of God, having its final end in God.
In the state of slothfulness and forgetfulness of God a man may be aware of the necessity of setting God above all things and of serving Him above all, but the heavy body and the burdened soul draw him not towards Heaven but towards the earth. Yielding to this attraction, a man grows negligent of the service of God, and negligence little by little leads him to the complete forgetfulness of God.
He who is ungrateful to God often reckons his own abilities and powers (and sometimes fate) to be the author of his happiness and of every good, or else values the gifts of God too little and remembers them little. Even ingratitude towards men is held in society to be a coarse and shameful thing; the worse is it towards God. Ingratitude bears witness to a callous, and not seldom a treacherous, heart.
False zeal for God, or fanaticism, is the striving to spread the knowledge of God and to guard the honour and glory of God by means other than those indicated in the Gospel and answering to the spirit of Christ. The Lord teaches us to preach the Word of God by patient instruction, by meek admonition, by good example, by an honest attitude to one's work, by attention to human dignity. But the means which contradict the Christian religion and its commandments are these — violence, fear, the love of power and the love of honour, brute force. And blinded by passion, fanatics are not able to tell the difference between truth and falsehood, and therefore hold as truth only that which they preach and for which they are zealous, while all the rest they reckon as falsehood and deem unworthy of existence.
The complete opposite of love for God is hatred. Instead of seeking communion with God, the hater breaks off every bond with Him, wars against and mocks all that is sacred, avoids every reminder of faith and religion. Correspondingly this is expressed in his attitude towards his neighbours. The absence of compassion and mercy, the inability to put oneself in another man's place, enmity and malice — these are plain signs of spiritual falling and of the loss of grace. And only Love returns us to the Heavenly Father and makes us heirs of eternal good things.
"We must live by faith, hope and love," teaches Saint Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky), "this is our support, by this we must breathe, but it must be remembered that however great faith may be, however blessed hope may be, love is higher than all. Acquire then, all of you, the love of Christ, cleanse your hearts and give place in them to holy love!".
