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Not Loving the World to Reach God
By Archdeacon Habib Guirgus
If you desire to be happy and perfect, and want God to dwell in your heart, then despise all that is in the world: lusts, vanity, and evil desires.
Put aside the
earthly joy and human craving, and consider everything as if it was nothing. If
you feel the bitterness of the vain lusts of this world, then you shall taste
the sweet comfort of Jesus.
You cannot stare with one eye looking up to the heights, and the other looking
down. In the same way, you cannot taste the love of God while you are hanging
on to the love of the world.
You cannot enjoy the spiritual life while you favor the earthly life.
Reject and despise every lowly desire from the depth of your heart, and let
your soul find rest in God alone.
Pluck out from your soul any foreign love, and prepare in your heart a place to
imprint the divine love in it.
God cannot accept to be in a heart that has been blemished by the love of the
world and where the evil lusts of the world dwell.
How can you enjoy God's voice in your conscience, while you are guided by the
world, which annoys your heart by its awful sounds?
Let it be known, that the Lord wants your heart to be pure, perfect, and empty
from the love of the world, without any blemish, or even leaning or tilting
towards it; so that He alone can acquire it and imprint His image on it.
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