If someone lived in the house of a certain good and merciful lord and received food, drink, clothing, protection and other benefits from him, but not only did not show him worthy gratitude as his benefactor, but also showed all rudeness, disrespect and annoyance, reviled and scolded him, then it would be worthy of pity and everyone would be indignant at such a mad person. And indeed, such a person would be worthy of all indignation and reproach! Ingratitude is a great evil, madness and blindness, and it is abhorrent to every person. In this vice dwell children who do not honor their parents; people who revile and slander their shepherd; students who annoy their teachers; those who are subject to the authorities, who care about the common good, do not show worthy honor and love; beggars who do not love those who give them alms and do not remember their benevolence, and others. Such or incomparably bitter ingratitude is shown to God by lawless Christians.

For no matter what good man does to man, he does not his own, but God's good, since God is the Source and Cause of all good in the world. God gives us His true good. What good and beneficence God has not shown us, O Christians! He created us, and created us not as cattle, but as people gifted with intelligence. He created by His most special counsel: "Let us make man" (Gen. 1:26). He created in His own image and likeness. What greater honor can there be for a man than to be created in the image of God! For this alone, we will never be able to thank God with anything.

But when we sinned, fell and perished, – and then our Most Gracious Creator did not abandon us in our destruction. And what means has He not invented to restore us and bring us to Himself! He sent His prophets to us, who turned us, who had departed from Him, to Him. He gave us His holy word, as an epistle, in which He revealed and declared His holy will.

For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him (John 3:16-17), Who, while living, or rather wandering on earth, did not do anything! No matter what beneficences he showed! No matter how much he suffered for us! What reproaches, blasphemy, and insults from His ungrateful people He endured! Finally, he died on the cross for our salvation! All this was done by our Most Gracious Lord by the grace of His Heavenly Father and by His free will. Thus having shown the wondrous Providence for us, our Most Merciful God called us to His holy faith, and washed us, sanctified us, and justified us in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in His Holy Spirit, as the Apostle says to Christians: "But we were washed, but we were sanctified, but we were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:11). These and other blessings of God belong to our soul and to eternal life.

The whole world bears witness to what good He does to our body and temporal life. Turn your mind and eyes, O man, to all His creation, and judge: whom does it serve? Isn't it us? Who cares about the sun, moon and stars? Isn't it us? Who cares about the air and clouds? Isn't it us?

Who cares about the land with fruits? Isn't it us? To whom are cattle, beasts, and birds? Isn't it us? Who cares about water with fish and other things that live in it? Is it not us, O Christians? All creation serves us by God's command, since without it we cannot live even the slightest time. Who can live without bread and water, who can live without clothes? We need air so much that we cannot live a minute without it. What would our lives be like if God took the light away from us? Would not everyone wander like blind men? Who could have remained unharmed from the invisible enemy, the devil, if God by His almighty hand had not protected us from the enemy, who with great malice rages at our generation, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8).

But why enumerate so much? It must be confessed that God's blessings are innumerable, which each of us is worthy of. We are all in the love and blessings of God. Whatever you look at, whatever you turn your mind to, all this shows God's love for us and beneficence. Gehenna itself, announced to us by Him, does us good, because it frightens us. Let us repent and weep before the Lord, Who created us, that He might have mercy on us and deliver us from it. The devil himself is allowed by our Creator for our benefit. And he allows us as much as it is useful for us, and this enemy tempts us as much as it is useful for us. How useful? It awakens us from laziness, encourages us to prayer. Feeling the presence of this enemy, we turn to God and ask for help and protection from Him. And just as a soldier is more often in battle, the more skillful he becomes, so a Christian the more temptations he bravely endures from this enemy, the better and more skillful he is in the Christian calling, and the more victories he wins over this enemy, the more beautiful crown he will be vouchsafed from the Founder of the podvig Jesus Christ. "Having care," says St. John Chrysostom, "For our salvation, God, has left the devil, so that he might stir us up from laziness, and prepare for us an opportunity to receive a crown" (Discourse 23 on the Book of Genesis). And St. Paul says: "A thorn in the flesh has been given to me, an angel of Satan, to afflict me, that I may not be exalted" (2 Cor. 12:7).

Do you see how useful a hostile spirit is to us, do you see how the proud lead us to humility? He does dirty tricks to us, so that we do not exalt ourselves. And so the evil and spiteful spirit contributes to our good with an evil intention. But when a Christian commits lawlessness, forgets all these blessings of God, and does not revere God, his Benefactor, and is very ungrateful to Him, – he becomes like one who reviles and scolds his benefactor, a man, and does not consider the good deed done to himself for anything. A Christian does not revere and despise God because he does not want to listen to Him. This is a terrible word, O Christian, but it is true! How? Listen and heed. God commands: Do not swear by My name in vain. But the lawless Christian swears. God commands: Honor your parents and your authorities. But the lawless Christian does not revere. God commands: do not be angry, do not be angry with your neighbor, do not hate him. But the lawless Christian restrains anger, holds grudges, and hates his neighbor, who was created in the image of God. God commands: Thou shalt not commit fornication or commit adultery. But the lawless Christian either commits adultery or commits fornication, and thereby defiles his own and the other's soul and body, defiles, I say, the soul, created in the image of God. God commands: do not steal, do not steal someone else's. But the lawless Christian steals and steals. God commands: do not bear false witness, do not slander, do not scold your neighbor, do not lie, do not deceive, do not condemn and do not slander. But the lawless Christian does not look at this God's command, he bears false witness, lies, deceives, reviles, scolds, judges and condemns a person like himself, and sometimes even a better one.

See how the wicked man does not listen and despises his Creator! What reverence is there for the father from the son, and for the master from the slave, when the son of the father and the servant does not listen to the master? Is it not obvious contempt and humiliation? Oh, how many despised and despised Gods there are in the world! How many enemies of God are among those who think that they revere Him! Oh, what a poor state Christianity has come to!

A Christian, who has received and is receiving so many mercies and blessings from God, becomes an enemy of God, his Highest Benefactor, he who knows that both for the sake of everyone and for his sake the Son of God came into the world, suffered and died; he who has been called by the word of God to eternal life; he who is washed by the bath of Baptism by God, sanctified, justified.

Oh, how the devil infected the poor man! As the adversary of God himself is, so did He make man. Do you see, Christian, what sin leads you to! You, who should be a lover of God and reverent of God, become an enemy of God through sin. It seems sweet to you, but its fruits are bitter! You do not see it now, but then you will see when all the deeds and thoughts of men are revealed. It is hard for you, a man, to endure when a person like you, who has received some small benefit from you, does not show you gratitude. How much heavier is ingratitude to God, all good to the Source! From this we see that everywhere God complains of ingratitude: they have forgotten His blessings and miracles (Psalm 77:11). And again: Hear, O heaven, and hearken, O earth, for the Lord says: "I have begotten and exalted sons, but they have rejected Me" (Isaiah 1:2). And again: They have sinned, they are not His children because of their vices, they are a rebellious and perverse generation. Do you repay this to the Lord? (Deuteronomy 32:5-6), and in other places of Scripture.

And so, come to your senses, Christian, and, acknowledging your ingratitude and sins, fall down with humility before the merciful eyes of God, and from the depths of your heart cry out to Him: "I have sinned, O Lord, have mercy on me! Receive me, the lost sheep, and count Thy chosen flock! Give me a heart, O God who knows the heart, that reveres Thee, fears Thee, loves Thee, and follows Thy will! Guide me in Thy way, and I will walk in Thy truth. Look upon me and have mercy on me, according to the judgment of those who love Thy name!"

And when, having been converted, you begin to repent and go through a new Christian life, your former lawless life will not harm you, and then you yourself will know what you were like in God's eyes. When thou returnest and sigh, then thou shalt be saved, and thou shalt understand where thou wast (Isaiah 30:15). You will understand in what a miserable state you were, how far you wandered from the path of truth. You will understand that you were not worthy of the Christian name, although you called yourself a Christian, that in fact you were dead, although you dreamed that you were alive. Everyone who lives in sin is dead to God, just as he who lives in God is dead to sin. Then will it be fulfilled that which was said of thee: for this my son was dead, and is alive again, and was lost, and is found" (Luke 15:24). And then there will be joy in heaven for you before the angels of God. Oh, let it come to pass! O Lord God of hosts, turn us, and enlighten Thy face, and we shall be saved (Psalm 79:20).