And what prevents us from seeing Christ? Why do we see the priest, see the cross and the Gospel, see the lectern, and not see Christ? Why do we not see that the temple is the heavenly Jerusalem, it is the Kingdom of Heaven? But because the eyes of our faith are darkened. Why don't we move mountains with our prayers, don't perform miracles? But because we do not have such faith. If we had faith even as much as a mustard seed, and said to any mountain: if it moved, it would move and fall into the sea. These are the words of the Lord. And the Lord was not joking, this is true. So, then, our faith is even smaller than a mustard seed, even more meager.

Faith is not trust that Christ once lived on earth, rose again, and ascended to heaven. This is all quite a scientific fact, science has long shown this. But belief in this fact does not bring a person closer to God. The faith spoken of in the Scriptures, which Abraham and all the saints had, is not faith on the word, but spiritual vision. Precisely to the extent that a person sees God, he is a believer. Simply, for historical reasons, these two words seem to have merged into one, but in fact these faiths are different: faith in the fact of God's existence and faith as an instrument of cognition of God, thanks to which it is possible to see Him and communicate with Him.

At all times and all peoples had only one opportunity to unite with God - through faith. Not through trust in the fact that God exists, but through a living connection with God. Therefore, if a person does not meet God halfway, if he is not going to listen to what the Lord says, it means that he has no faith. And the more a person believes, the more he sees God, the more he sees how the Lord acts in his life, the more his podvig grows in a person. Therefore, if a person stands up to pray and firmly knows, sees with the eyes of his heart, that he has truly stood before God, then he will not have the question: should he stand or sit? Is it reverent or irreverent to read to him? Should he yawn during prayer or not yawn? He stands before the living God. "It is terrible to fall into the hands of the living God." And the feeling of man, the trembling of his heart, tells him that he stands before the living God. But when a person stands up to pray and turns to God, God is already near. He is so close to a person that you don't even have to say a prayer aloud - but God already hears. What a closeness of man to God! Never are two people so close as man and God. And so a person begins to pray, to turn with his living heart to the living God, Who stands here and listens to him.

The Apostle Paul says: "Pray without ceasing." What does that mean? Stand unceasingly before God. Perhaps each of us has noticed that we behave completely differently in church, we talk to the priest in a completely different tone than to our own children, for example, or to a friend. Why is there such a difference? Because when a person comes to church, his soul involuntarily feels itself in the presence of God. And for a person, even a complete non-believer, when he enters the church, his soul is somehow pulled into a chord. The mind does not yet understand and is not aware of anything, but its soul begins to tremble because the Lord is present here. If the heart is alive, if it is not coarse enough, then trembling overwhelms a person so much that sometimes tears begin to flow from his eyes when he enters the church, although he himself does not know why. One servant of God, a man far from the Church, said to me: "Father, I can't go to church - as soon as I enter, I start crying, I feel uncomfortable, and I leave. That is, this is how a person's soul feels; But instead of striving to get closer and closer, she draws such a wrong conclusion that she should not go, although these are tears not of grief, not of despair, but tears of tenderness.

So we all came to church, there were icons around us, prayers were read, sung - and here we pulled ourselves up a little, albeit at times, but somehow we stood before God. But our whole life should become such a divine service. And if a person constantly stands before the living God, if faith fills his whole being, how can anyone be condemned? How can you think badly when God is near and He sees your thoughts, sees through you? All this happens to us because we are so blind and we only have glimpses of faith sometimes. All our sins, all our squabbles, all swearing, envy, malice, arrogance, condemnation, slander, fornication come from unbelief. Unbelief is the loss of God. Man lost God - and immediately condemned him. A man lost God - and immediately became angry.

Let's imagine: we came home from church, took off our coats, changed our shoes. We entered the room and saw that the Lord Jesus Christ was sitting at the table. Any of us, seeing Him alive, sitting at the table like this, dare to go up to the TV, turn it on and sit down to watch - when there, in the room, the living Christ is sitting? Or start arguing with your neighbor, or chatting on the phone? Isn't it? But in fact, Christ - He can always be with us, and we can always have communion with Him, and we can always be near and close to Him. And what prevents us? We are hindered by our unbelief, our unbelief in what the Lord said: "I am with you always, even to the end of the age." And as soon as each of us turns to Him, He is already here, near, He stands invisibly, He is invisibly present.

Even visibly, sometimes the Lord reveals Himself to man, but the fact is that we are weak people and cannot endure it. Even such great people as Seraphim of Sarov saw Christ in church and was stunned, he could not continue to serve; They took him out, set him up, and he stood like that for a long time. Therefore, the Lord, because of our weakness, knowing that we cannot endure, we cannot resist seeing such grace, He is invisible to us, and we must live by faith that He is near. And since we constantly lose this, we very easily forgive ourselves one sin, another, a third, and thereby move further, further, further away from God. Only occasionally, when life circumstances somehow "bake" us, we call out to God from the depths - and the Lord is again next to us.

Therefore, if we want the Lord to really be born in our hearts, to grow and live and to lead us into the Kingdom of Heaven, then we must live by faith, we must constantly strengthen and develop this virtue in ourselves. And how to do it? Here I am such a person who is absent-minded, unprayerful, unvirtuous, very far from God, feeling nothing, so I lie and sleep all my life. And my conscience does not particularly torment me for any of my sins. And how can I revive my faith? How can I make it real, how can I make it so that I really have the fear of God?

The fear of God is born of the presence of God. God is near, and man trembles, afraid to sin. Cut him into pieces - he cannot sin, because God is standing nearby. How can I? The Lord Jesus Christ looks at me and says to me: "Learn from me, that I am meek and lowly in heart." Am I going to be angry, proud, insisting on my own way? And you can also die of shame.

How can we acquire such faith? Only by fulfilling the commandments. But in this way: you need to read the Holy Scriptures, and learn the commandments of God, and try to fulfill these commandments. To do it, even if it does not feel the benefit of it and does not see the need for it. And then the Lord will draw near to us. Like Abraham, he didn't see God directly in front of him. The Scripture says, God said to Abraham. But we do not know how the Lord addressed him: whether he heard a voice, whether it was in a dream or in some other way. But you and I have the greatest opportunity that Abraham did not have. In the time of Abraham there was not even the Holy Scriptures, and now we have a whole book - the words of the Lord. The very Word of God came to earth, and we are nourished by this Word. The Gospel, the entire New Testament in general, is a living revelation of God. Every time we communicate with the Holy Gospel, we communicate with the Lord Himself, the Lord tells us through this book. And we need to take these words into our hearts, we need to try to fulfill them. And then our heart will gradually come to life.

How does this happen? Here is a simple example. The man drowned, they pulled him out of the water - he does not breathe, his heart is standing. And he is given artificial respiration, his lungs are made to move. And when they began to move them, he began to breathe, clapped his eyes, and came to life. So do we. Our faith is very poor, we do not have living faith by ourselves, but we need to do such artificial respiration for ourselves - to begin to fulfill the commandments of God. To fulfill them, not even realizing their usefulness, not understanding the full necessity of them, that is, to act as if in reverse.

When a person is a Christian, then God's commandments are fulfilled by him. For example, there is no such force on earth that would force Seraphim of Sarov to steal. Even with the threat of death, with a threat to relatives. He will say: I can't. Why? Because it is before the eyes of Christ. How can he violate the commandment of Christ? Yes, he loves his body - naturally, who hates his flesh? He wants to live, and it hurts him too. But here Christ stands, how can we not listen to Christ? "Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me." He remembers these words. He read the entire New Testament during the week: Matthew on Monday, Mark on Tuesday, Luke on Wednesday. He knew it by heart. And how could he go against the commandment, when it was said: Thou shalt not steal? How could he get over it? He couldn't.

And we, on the contrary, can do everything: we can condemn, and slander, and be malicious, and take revenge, and take all kinds of thoughts into ourselves. And it is very difficult for us to resist. Therefore, we need to act from a completely different side. For example, we take the commandment: for example, to pray unceasingly, and we force ourselves to pray all our lives. Not only in the morning and evening, but also in the afternoon, and always, wherever we are, we try to pray. As he remembered, so he forced himself. And pray until the devil steals our thoughts again. And so pushing all the time. The Lord says: "Push, and it will be opened to you." Or, "Love your enemies." Said? Said. This means that I will try to fulfill this commandment. He has done me evil, I want to take revenge on him. But, remembering the commandment, I will take and break myself, I will not take revenge on him, but, on the contrary, I will do good to him for this evil, reluctantly. I don't want to do him any good, everything is boiling inside me, if I had my will, I would kill him on the spot. But no, on the contrary: once he broke himself, twice he broke, three ... He broke it a thousand times, and then you look - the evil is gone, it is gone.

And so gradually, gradually, our soul, which we will "rock" with God's commandments, will gradually begin to breathe, will come to life. Gradually, we will draw closer to Christ, and gradually then we will learn that there is faith that moves mountains. Although this path is very difficult, it requires great courage, there is no other path - only the path of faith in Christ. And our faith is like that of a corpse. The Lord through the Apostle also says: faith without works is dead. What is the use of this faith if we do not fulfill God's commandments? There is no sense in this.