Our life's challenge

It is necessary from day to day to see if there is any dirt in the heart, it is necessary to strictly monitor what and when it is defiled and contaminated, this defilement, this dirt must be washed off immediately.
How to wash off? Tears, tears of repentance.

Here, in earthly life, we have communion with God only in prayers, in our deep tearful prayers.

Our Spirit then communicates with the Spirit of God.

And there this communication will be eternal, endless, incessant.

Will we then see our God face to face?

Oh no! God is Spirit, He does not have physicality.

One cannot imagine Him in the form of a good-looking Elder sitting on a throne. No one has ever seen God.

God is inaccessible to our eyes, because He is Spirit, because He is immaterial. Remember this.

This is how St. John the Theologian about what he saw in his great vision: "... I was in the spirit; and, behold, the throne was in heaven, and the One Sitting on the throne; and this Seated One looked like a stone jasper and sardis; and a rainbow around the throne like an emerald in appearance "(Rev. 4: 2-3).

These words describe God sitting on the throne: This Seated One was like a jasper stone and a sardis.

This is not a human image at all, it is some kind of mysterious image, shining with the beauty of precious stones, which we cannot even imagine ...

But we will see the Lord Jesus Christ with our eyes, because He was resurrected and ascended to heaven in a human body, in a glorified body.

When the holy apostles watched the ascending Savior, who had already disappeared from sight behind a cloud, then two men in white robes appeared to them and said: "Men of Galilee, why are you standing and looking at heaven?

This Jesus, ascended from us to heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him ascending into heaven "(Acts 1:11), in the same way, that is, in a human body.

And if until His Second Coming the Lord and our God Jesus Christ will preserve His human body, does this mean that He will preserve it forever?

We know that the Lord appeared to His martyrs and great saints many times in His earthly bodily form, and in the new Jerusalem we will see Him in a human body, see with our eyes.

And we will see God the Father and God the Holy Spirit only with spiritual eyes.

Whose spirit will be honored with this highest happiness?

Only a pure spirit, only those who are pure in heart will see God, only those in whom there is no filth, for nothing filth will enter the new Jerusalem.

To be worthy of staying in this eternal city, all the time of our earthly life must be devoted to one great cause - the purification of our hearts.

How can you cleanse your heart?

Do you not know how you keep your dwellings clean: you sweep and wash floors, sweep cobwebs and all kinds of dirt, wash windows and doors, wash tablecloths and curtains; and only then, if you constantly take care of the cleanliness of the home, is it clean.

In exactly the same way, one must take care of the purity of the heart: one must look every day to see if there is any dirt in it, one must strictly monitor what and when it is defiled and contaminated, this defilement, this dirt must be washed off immediately. How to wash off? Tears, tears of repentance.

This is the task of our life.

Saint Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky)