by Archbishop Averky (Taushev) –
It is in one’s personal effort to eradicate evil and to implant good that the essence of Christian struggle or asceticism lies. One must coerce oneself in every way, constrain oneself to refrain from every type of evil, and compel oneself to every good. Unseen warfare is impossible without one’s own efforts.
“Water does not flow under a rock lying on the ground,” as the wise Russian proverb goes. Thus it also is in the spiritual life—we cannot sit idly and wait for God to do everything for us. God very much desires to help us and truly does help us, but we receive the aid of His grace only when we apply our own efforts, our self-restraint, and self-compulsion. In this way, we show the sincerity of our striving to conquer the evil in our soul and to place good therein.
God gave man free will; He granted him the right to choose freely the path of evil or the path of good, and He does not hinder that freedom. When one is on the path of evil, God tries in various ways to bring him to his senses, to make him understand that he has chosen for himself a dangerous path, a path that will lead him to perdition. Still God does not hinder that person’s freedom, but he perishes if he pays no heed to the instruction that God sends him in the form of various signs and warnings, misfortunes and troubles. If one is upon the path of good, God immediately shows His all-powerful, grace-filled support commensurate with the person’s sincerity as revealed in his personal efforts.
Man’s personal efforts are like a receiver for the grace of God. The greater and more decisive these efforts are, the greater is the grace-filled help from God that they attract. These efforts in and of themselves are not as significant in unseen warfare as the sincerity of one’s good will that is revealed in these efforts. The more forcefully one battles, the more intense the efforts of his good will—the greater is the grace that he receives from God.
Incidentally, this clearly demonstrates the significance of good deeds for salvation, an idea that is rejected by the Protestants. It is not in and of themselves that good deeds have meaning, nor is it the personal effort of doing good that saves man; what saves him is the earnestness with which his will is directed towards good. In forcing himself to do good, one shows that his will seeks virtue. This is what attracts the all-powerful grace of God which, conjoined with one’s personal effort, makes him a victor over evil in his own soul, which is the ultimate purpose of unseen warfare.
The Scriptures speak many times of the necessity for these personal efforts, of the necessity for struggle. The whole of the Lord Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount speaks about the necessity of exerting one’s efforts to direct one’s will towards good, about the battle with evil feelings and inner dispositions of the soul. Enter by the narrow gate—thus the Lord brings to a close the Sermon on the Mount—for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it (Matt 7:13–14). Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven (Matt 7:21).
The Lord Jesus Christ speaks about the necessity for such personal efforts: the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force (Matt 11:12). The apostles, as it says in Acts, constantly taught that we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22).
From these passages of Holy Scripture, it is clear how mistaken are those who think that victory in unseen warfare and the attainment of the Kingdom of God are accomplished easily, of their own accord, only by faith in the Lord Jesus (for example, the Protestants). These scriptural quotes distinctly witness to the fact that personal labor, personal effort, or what is called struggle, are absolutely necessary for victory in unseen warfare.
True, we must not think that man is in a condition to save himself solely through his own efforts, or that these efforts are merits before God for which he receives the right to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as a reward, as Roman Catholics think. One’s personal effort in his salvation, or his personal struggle, is necessary as proof of the sincerity of his striving to conquer evil in his soul and to implant good.
This labor and effort are impossible without constant self-restraint, without constant exertion of one’s will, without a persistent battle with the base, egotistical strivings of one’s sinful nature. In this way, a battle arises in the soul between good strivings and bad habits. The more we exercise self-restraint, the more our bad habits weaken and the easier it becomes to overcome them.
It requires that man constantly constrain himself to do not what the sin living in his flesh desires, but that which the Law of God, the law of good, demands. Without this constant self-restraint, there can be no success in the spiritual life.
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Excerpts from the book The Struggle for Virtue by Archbishop Averky (Taushev). (Minor organizational edits to optimize readability and emphasize key points made by Chris Banescu.)
Awesome! Thank you!