Lenton Prayer 2021

The following is a necessary re-post:

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Almighty God, O Holy God, in the name of Jesus, we pray (Lord, hear our prayer): 

Give us grace to draw near to you and to seek your face. 

    We thank you that we have been given access to you, Father God, as your Spirit prompted the writer of Hebrews: 

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  

And then Lord, as we draw near to you and your Spirit reminds us of our ongoing sin and as we remember the crucifixion of Jesus that comes at the end of Lent (in time almost 2000 years ago), we hear again from the word: 

 …let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 

Lord Jesus give us grace to rededicate ourselves to the purpose of glorifying you and seeking to enjoy your presence as we identify with you in your journey to the cross. And as we ask this, we are again reminded from your word: 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons… (from Hebrews ch.12) 

And the scripture goes on to add: 

12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. O Lord God, we do ask for Your strength in our weaknesses and for Your grace to put aside ourselves and draw near to You. 

For the church universal and for all of us now praying, we ask that you create in us a pure heart, O God, and that You renew a steadfast spirit within us. 

We ask that You not cast us away from your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from us, and Holy God, may you yet maintain in us the joy of your salvation. 

Lord grant us this Lent a willing spirit and sustain us with the bread of heaven. 

 May your church experience revival and reformation and may our nation see and hear Your mighty works and come to repentance and salvation. 

In the name of Jesus we pray.

Review of The Ancient Path

The Ancient Path by Spyridon Bailey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Interesting and somewhat helpful book. I especially liked the chapters on Prayer, Knowledge of God, Love, and Repentance.
The chapters on Works and Mercy misrepresent the protestant position and ignore the clear teaching of scripture. There are other problems, but overall the book is of value to the devout.

The biggest problem with this book is that the Orthodox Church is always claiming that it is the only legitimate version of Christianity. Yet when 2020's COVID theater was implemented, they capitulated to the fascist governments worldwide like all the other branches of the Church. My question is are you loyal to Christ or to government? The claim to have unbroken line of authority from the time of the apostles to the present age is proved false by the current behavior of submission to ungodly world government, thus showing themselves to be anti-Christ. It is heart-breaking that the leadership of this branch of the church can't even see this truth.

The legitimate church is the underground church, or any congregation that has not capitulated to the satanic world-system. My admonition is choose good not evil.

View all my reviews

Anti-human policy revealed

In the event that the following link doesn't work or is blocked, following the link is the text of the article:

Canceling Love in the Name of Love

These remarks were delivered at the Theopolis Epiphany Feast, held in Birmingham, Alabama, on January 29, 2021.

“How lonely sits the city that was once so full of people” (Lamentations 1:1).

“Then I will eliminate from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem, says the Lord, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride; for the land will become a site of ruins” (Jeremiah 7:24).

“Babylon, the great city, is cast down with violence, and will never be found again. And the voice of harpists, musicians, flute players, and trumpeters will never be heard in you again; and no craftsman of any craft will ever be found in you again; and the voice of the mill will never be heard in you again; and the light of a lamp will never shine in you again; and the voice of the groom and bride will never be heard in you again” (Revelation 18:21-23).

Not so long ago, we had to imagine these scenes of apocalyptic silence. No longer. We’ve lived them. Our streets have been emptied. Restaurants are closed, parks and playgrounds sealed off with police tape. Weddings and funerals are reduced or canceled, concert halls and museums vacant. For many, Thanksgiving and Christmas never happened. For months, most churches stopped meeting, and some still haven’t fully opened. We’ve operated by one great commandment: Thou shalt not feast.

Incredibly, none of this happened because of an invasion or a military defeat. We did it to ourselves, voluntarily*. Civilizations are soundscapes, filled with the clatter of work, laments for the dead, the laughter of weddings. We shut down civilization. We silenced ourselves.

We had to, many will answer. We had to shut everything down to preserve life. There is no wealth but life, and even if we have to lose everything to survive, it’s worth it. 

Put to the side bitterly disputed questions about the virulence of the pandemic. The effort to preserve life by prohibiting the living of it doesn’t work. It can’t work. It would work if we were mere biological machines, who need nothing but air, food, water, sewage, and shelter. It would work if men and women were nothing but detached shards of humanity who can flourish in isolation, if communion were an optional extra. It would work if life were nothing more than food, and the body no more than clothing. It would work if we could save our life by merely preserving it. 

That’s not how human life is designed. That doesn’t fit the real world. And when we try to force life into that mold, it backfires. We’ve sacrificed all the social and cultural activities that lend beauty and richness to life, things that make life more than bare biological survival. We sacrificed life to preserve life. In the name of love, we canceled love. 

It’s bound to backfire. In our frenetic necrophobia, we flee death, avoiding contact with others, locking ourselves in our homes, obsessively washing our hands, avoiding public places and gatherings—all for the sake of survival. But a life without human touch, a life in which we never venture, a life without risk is no life at all, but a living death. To preserve bare life at all costs is suicide. To elevate bare life as the supreme value, we have to make the supreme sacrifice of life itself. And so we flee from death, and find ourselves rushing to death’s embrace, strangely comforted. Our necrophobia becomes necrophilia.

What we’re doing this evening is an act of defiance. We defy the silence, and dare to share together the voice of the harpists and flutists and trumpeters and pianists, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of singers, the voice of laughter over a shared table. Here tonight, together, we form a circle of sound, light, and life. Here at least a city lives. We’re not here to defy this or that petty ordinance. We’re here, in the name and power of the Risen Lord Jesus, to defy death, including the living death of the silent city.

Festivity isn’t some extraneous add-on to life. A feast is the effective sign of life, the site where life is lived, life in communion with God and one another, life as shared joy, a sharing of food and drink that is also a sharing of ourselves with one another. Food exists to be saturated with personal communion, “to carry in itself the communication of one person to another” (Erik van Versendaal). And so we taste the goodness of one another, and the goodness of the Lord, through the goodness of these creatures of food and drink.

The world is food, a banquet of sights, sounds, aromas, tastes, textures, a table spread by our Creator for our mutual and common delight. This—what we are doing here, now—this is life. So, welcome to the feast. Welcome back to life. Eat, drink, laugh, talk, shout, sing, rejoice, live.

Peter J. Leithart is president of the Theopolis Institute.

Bold emphasis mine.

*The policy was imposed from above (ie from government), but the people mindlessly went along with the program.