I was recently commissioned to translate some profound and inspiring works by our Righteous Father Alexei Mechev, which I put together in a booklet. Unfortunately, after printing 500 copies, circumstances changed and the one who commissioned the work has been hospitalized and called off the purchase. Since I am at an unforeseen personal loss with this, I wanted to make these never before translated texts available to my followers for only $11.95 a copy, which includes shipping and handling in the United States (orders outside the US, please use a pay button towards the bottom of this page and include $5 for a total of $16.95). I would like to sell all of these as quick as possible, and it would be great reading material for the lenten season. As an added incentive, for the first 50 people who order, I will also offer a never before published text by Fr. John Romanides titled "The Canon and the Inspiration of the Holy Scripture" free of charge.

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January 3, 2012

The Kingdom of God is Gained With the Heart and Not With the Tongue


By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"Not everyone who says, `Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 7:21).

Brethren, one does not gain the Kingdom of God with the tongue, but with the heart. The heart is the treasury of those riches by which the kingdom is purchased; the heart and not the tongue! If the treasury is full with the riches of God, i.e., a strong faith, good hope, vivid love and good deeds, then the messenger of those riches, the tongue, is faithful and pleasant. If the treasury is void of all those riches, then its messenger [the tongue] is false and impudent. The kind of heart, the kind of words. The kind of heart, the kind of deeds. All, all depends on the heart.

Hypocrisy is helpless before men, and is even more helpless before God. "If then I am a father," says the Lord through the Prophet Malachi, "If then I am a father where is the honor due to me?" And If I am a master, where is the reverence due to me?" (Malachi 1:6). That is, I hear you call me father, but I do not see you honoring me with your heart. I hear you call me master, but I do not see fear of me in your hearts.

Our prayer: "Lord! Lord!" is beautiful and beneficial only when it emerges from a prayerful heart. The Lord Himself commanded that we pray unceasingly, but not only with the tongue to be heard by men, but rather enclosed in the cell of the heart so that the Lord could hear and see us.

Lord, majestic and wonderful, deliver us from hypocrisy and pour Your fear into our hearts so that our hearts could stand continually upright in prayer before You.

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