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The absence of hope.

Deviations from Christian hope are expressed in the forms of self-reliance, weak faith, false hope, impatience and desperation. As an example of a self-reliant person, it is possible to remind of that Evangelical rich person, who, relying on his wealth, considered his position durable, reliable, instead of relying on God. Other people, instead of God, put not their trust in princes… in the son of man, on the Psalmist’s expression, on the important and powerful of this world; in whom there is no help (Psalms, 145:3). Still others rely on their abilities, resourcefulness, experience, shielding by them the divine help. Such hopes are condemned by the words of Ap. James: Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that (4:13-15). Thus, self-reliance always puts hope for this terrestrial world, for its perishable and transient benefits against hope for God, Who alone is unalterable and not perishable. Keeping that in mind, Ap. Paul commands to Timothy: Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy (1 Tim. 6:17). The Proverbs say: Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding (Prov. 3:5).

Weak faith is shyness of the human soul, which does not find in it the ability to rely on the future decisively and firmly. It appears from a deficiency in strong faith in the providence of God in the difficult circumstances. In this state once were, for example, the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ during the floating through the stormy sea. In great fear they woke the sleeping Teacher and appealed to Him: save us: we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? (Math. 8:26). To those having weak faith and the timid are addressed the words of Ap. Peter: Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time (1 Pet. 5:7). Those having weak faith must be taught from the Psalmist, who in the misfortunes appealed to himself: Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance (Psalms 41:5, 2 Cor. 4:8 and f. 6:8).

False hope is rash, dreamy, even audacious hope for God. It is expressed, mainly, in two forms. First, in the state and desire of the man to manage the matters of the divine providence and miraculous force of God arbitrary. For example, they subjected their physical and emotional life to a great danger in the hope, that they will be miraculously saved; they confidently expect a miracle from God as the proof of somebody’s innocence; in need and poverty they are inactive in the expectation of the divine help; in disease they do not want to see a doctor, giving the whole matter to God. In this case the man tempts God, according to the biblical expression (Deut. 6:16, Math. 4:7). Secondly, false hope is manifested in the extremely great confidence in one’s own eternal salvation. That false hoping in this sense forgets the words of the apostle: work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12). To the both types of false hope are directed the word of the wise: he that putteth his trust in the LORD shall be made fat. He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool (Prov. 28:25-26). There can be such strange and senseless false hope: the man requests and expects the assistance of God in evidently evil matters and deeds, for example, in vindictiveness, stealing, fraud and the like. To expose such false hope Ap. James writes: Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts (4:3).

Impatience is such a state, in which the man is agitated and burdened by the terrestrial life, with its disorganizations and disasters, and impatiently expects the fulfillment of the divine promises, about the absolute revelation of the reign of God and about the coming fulfillment of everything that exists. Instead of obeying the order of the gradual arrangement of the reign of God and of using the conditions of the terrestrial life as the means of education for the reign of God, the man wants to destroy this order, prematurely gain this glorious Reign, and therefore constantly complains about the terrestrial life. Already the first disciples of the Lord addressed Him with the impatient question: is not this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:6).

Love for God.

Faith and hope are not sufficient in order to raise the man to the highest degree of the moral state. The devils also believe, and tremble (Jam. 2:19). For the achievement of the indicated goal love for God is necessary. Love for God is an ardent desire and aspiration of the soul of the man to get connected with God as with the highest good, and therefore, the highest object of desires and aspirations. The Psalmist expresses this with the words: As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? (Psalms 41:1-2). And Ap. Paul says: I am…having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ (Phil.1:23). In this connection with God the soul finds the complete rest and bliss by the means of love.

The elements of love are already included in the Christian faith, this mother of all virtues; since the true faith already contains grains of that childish receptivity in it, which reaches the further development in love. But in love is developed not only the receptivity, as in faith, but also devotion, i.e., giving oneself to God, and in the terms of this it differs from faith and exceeds it. Therefore the Apostle said about charity that it is greater than faith (1 Cor. 13:13). But love together with need leads to hope; since the incomplete unity of the man with God (the incomplete realization of love for God), impels him to hope that it will be carried out in the future. But love nevertheless remains the object of hope; and hope will cease, when love will be absolutely accomplished. That is why the apostle gives greater significance to love, in comparison with hope (but the greatest of these is charity, 1 Cor. 13:13).

If by the means of faith a Christian enters into the secrets of divine knowledge, then by the means of love he enters into the secrets of divine life. Ap. John says: he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him (1 John 4:16), in it is established the relation of being the son of God. But to him also are opened the highest secrets of knowledge, since in love his spirit becomes open for the messages and actions from the side of God, and his close unity with Him can be compared to the relations between two friends. And about the friendly relations the Lord said: Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you (John 15:15). Apostle John as well says: He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love (1 John 4:8).

Although love, as faith, and hope, composes the natural necessity of the man, and therefore without love as without faith, or hope, the man cannot live, love, as faith and hope, obtains the highest character and becomes a virtue when it is combined with the sense of duty, which directs it to the certain object, that is, to the object, worthy of love. But the highest and most worthy object of love is God. But how love for God can be made the object of duty, when it is the free feeling, independent of anyone’s orders or the will of the man! Is it possible to love by order, by commandment? It is possible in a certain sense, it is possible with the sense of duty to direct attention to the infinite kindness and divine beauty and to revive in oneself those ideas, from which naturally comes love for God (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9 and further, Rom. 5:8). Therefore there is the commandment of love for God, and together with that it is called principal: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment (Math. 22:37-38, Deut. 6:5). It is also possible to pray about lighting and maintenance in us of love for God, since the love of God, on the word of Ap. Paul, is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost (Rom. 5:5); and on the word of apostle John: for love is of God (1 John 4:7). Generally, as any virtue (for example, faith), love is excited in us, first of all, by God; our love is the answer to the love of God. Therefore Ap. John says: We love him, because he first loved us (verse 19); and more: Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us (verse 10).

Someone will ask: is love for God, Who is the invisible creature, possible (No man hath seen God at any time, John 1:18), and if it is possible, then how? In order that love for any creature could be conceived, it is necessary to have, first of all, the concrete visualizing of this creature, expressed for us in any sensory image. Therefore A. John says: he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? (1 John 4:20). Consequently, the visual image is the first necessary condition of love. And we learn to love God, first of all, on the example of people, loving people, who are the image of God. A child, for example, first of all loves his father and mother, and then he transfers love for parents to the invisible God. At the same time on the basis of the Holy Scripture, which depicts the essence and qualities of God, and especially on the basis of the Evangelical legends, from which we learn about the life and deeds of the Lord Jesus Christ, who incarnated and lived among people, we compose the visual idea about God as about the ever-blissful and loving creature, and we bear it in our mind and heart. To this idea contribute the observations of visible nature (since the invisible is His, and His are eternal forces and Deity, from the creation of the world through the understanding by the things that are made (Rom.1:20). But the Lord Jesus Christ is not only a historical person, who once lived on the earth and now does not exist on it: He till now invisibly dwells among us, exciting in us by the Holy Spirit love for Himself and God. Meaning this, Ap. Paul calls us to remember that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead (2 Tim. 2:8). Ap. Peter says that, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory (1 Pet. 1:8).