By St. Nektarios of Aegina
True faith has the following attributes:
1) It informs the believer secretly of the truth of his faith.
2) It directs his steps in the path of truth.
3) It fills him with hope that is eternal, undiminishable, pure from every fear and every regret and has in it the fullness of bliss.
4) It fills him with warm and active love for God and his neighbor.
5) It gives the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
6) It gives abundantly the fruits of the grace of the Holy Spirit.
7) It regenerates the man who has been corrupted by sins.
8) It sanctifies the believer and makes him a worker of good works and an image of God.
9) It reveals God to believers.
10) It has divine moral principles.
11) It gives moral strength to the faithful.
12) It has heavenly, earthly and subterranean testimonies.
13) It fills the believer with moral strength, on which, like an unbreakable stone, every evil, every threat, every danger that comes from outside is broken.
14) It elevates man above the laws of nature and conquers the order of nature.
The faith that has all these attributes is true; because the faith that has Jesus Christ as its content has all these attributes, so the faith of Jesus is the true faith.
Source: A Treasury of Sacred and Philosophical Words, Nektarios Kephalas, Metropolitan of Pentapolis (Athens 1895, p. 7). Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
