A joyful perception of the world, recognition of our relatives, albeit strangers, in people on the street, and, finally, the need for prayer – these are the three main signs by which you can know that you are no longer just interested in Christianity or Orthodoxy, but have really become a Christian. And the level of your theological education, erudition, and so on. It has absolutely nothing to do with it. But three, perhaps the main dangers for those who have followed the path of spiritual life are also hidden here.

Three dangers on the road

The first danger lies in the fact that, when we become Christians, we often become indifferent to the world around us, to the sun, to the sky, to the singing of birds and the murmur of streams, and we explain this indifference by the fact that John the Theologian teaches us "not to love the world, nor the things that are in the world" (1 John 2:15). However, keeping in mind this passage from the New Testament, we must in no way forget that the word "world" in Scripture does not mean what the Greek philosophers did, it is not "the world around us", not "cosmos" in the ancient sense, it is "society", that is, the totality of those relations between people that have developed without God, outside of God and even against His will. Christ, through the mouth of His Apostle, exhorts us not to love these relationships, but how can we not love the world created by God, where "the heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the firmament declares the works of His hands" (Psalm 18:2). This is a sin against God, and we must not forget about it, it is a sin that robs us of the joy of life and separates us from God.

The second of these dangers is connected with the fact that often, when we come to God, we break off our relations with friends, we begin to fence ourselves off from people, fearing to damage our spiritual life by eating something non-nutritious during Lent or listening to Chopin or Schubert in a concert or on the radio. It begins to seem to us that since we have discovered God, we do not need people, and so on. Every kingdom unites people, and especially the Kingdom of Heaven, Christianity is when we are together, like the apostles, who "were all together and had all things in common... and they continued daily with one accord in the temple" (Acts 2:44-46). It is imperative to remember this and not to turn Orthodoxy into a religion of individual salvation.

Finally, the third danger for a Christian is that, having begun to pray, we certainly want to read everything that is prescribed in the Prayer Book, and as a result, we no longer pray, but simply read the rule from such and such a page to such-and-such a page, we are often in a hurry, we do not have time, we get upset by this, etc. We forget that prayer is not a spell, where it is important to pronounce this or that word. some definite formula, etc., but a living, heartfelt conversion, our breakthrough to God. We do not remember that it is a telephone receiver. Therefore, when praying, it is especially important not just to say something to Him, but to learn to hear Him, so that our prayer would not be a conversation on the phone with a cut wire. In the latter case, our Christianity will no longer be life in the Kingdom, but a kind of dream, undoubtedly harmful, for such a dream distracts us from life, from the people among whom we live, and inevitably dooms us to loneliness. And this, of course, is no longer Christianity or Orthodoxy.

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Today it is very important for us to understand that faith in God is a feeling. If we believe, it means that we feel Him as we feel cold, hunger and thirst, smell, taste, etc. In general, it can probably be said that the sense of God and His presence among us is the very sixth sense that poets sometimes think of. If we forget about this, then we are doomed: we ourselves will not notice how we too will begin to understand by faith some special knowledge, discipline or way of life, but, in any case, not an open heart to God.

Fear of God. What does that mean?

In the religiosity of many people today, the fear of punishment occupies a very prominent place. In Soviet times, there was an opinion that believers believe in God only because they do not want to suffer in Hell after death. It was precisely as a fear of the hellish torments that await disobedients after their death that atheistic propaganda presented the Orthodox faith. And I must say, she did it quite professionally.

Getting rid of fear