THE PROPERTIES OF THE LIE – Metropolitan Naum
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The lie is the greatest testimony for the absence of the grace of God.
Therefore, the lie is the cause of all our misfortunes. The lie is also a sign of no way out and a sign of hopelessness. The lie is unbelief. The lie is powerlessness.
Unlike the lie, the truth and the grace of God are inseparable. Grace is the reason for all our victories. Grace is a sign that we will find the path and the way out of any situation. Grace is an active faith, and unbeatable force. The Truth and the grace will remain, and lie will be defeated.
Why are people lying? If they are not mentally ill, they lie to hide their wrong way of life and their failures. The high position in the world without inner spiritual cover is a state of lie in itself. The lie is flirting and compromising with this world. The lie is self-justification. The right way of life does not need much talk and show, it is a mute witness of truth in itself. The truth is not afraid of this world, nor of its lie. The truth is a freedom and freely expresses itself, in due time. The truth is unstoppable. The truth does not change, it is eternally the same.
When a person accepts the lie instead of the truth, he accepts the beginning of his death – spiritual and physical. Same applies to a nation. Where ever the lie arrives, the grace of God slowly departs, the truth departs and the true faith, the love and hope departs, the courage leaves us. Then people are losing their family, their children, they are losing their land and their territories, and eventually they are losing their homeland. And why? Because of a small lie, which they accepted as truth, and which, through certain vanity and envy, turned into a great lie.
Children, the monk must not lie neither with his way of life nor with his words. Therefore, the true monk is a great hope for his Church and his people – the New Israel. Today, we hear all around us that Christ is born! But how many would have liked, if He was already born in our hearts. Yes, Christ our God, for the sake of Bogorodica (the Mother of God), may You be born in our hearts, we beseech You. Because without You we are false, and the lie has such a power that if we do not repent we lose exactly what we wanted to gain through that lie.
Metropolitan of Strumica Naum
