![\"Christian](\"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Unseen_Warfare_Spiritual_Battle_01_900x500.jpg\")
by Archbishop Averky (Taushev) –
\nIt is in one\u2019s 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\u2019s own efforts. <\/p>\n
\u201cWater does not flow under a rock lying on the ground,\u201d as the wise Russian proverb goes. Thus it also is in the spiritual life\u2014we 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/b> 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\u2019s 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\u2019s sincerity as revealed in his personal efforts.<\/p>\n
Man\u2019s 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\u2019s good will that is revealed in these efforts. The more forcefully one battles, the more intense the efforts of his good will\u2014the greater is the grace that he receives from God.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s personal effort, makes him a victor over evil in his own soul, which is the ultimate purpose of unseen warfare.<\/p>\n
The Scriptures speak many times of the necessity for these personal efforts, of the necessity for struggle.<\/b> The whole of the Lord Jesus Christ\u2019s Sermon on the Mount speaks about the necessity of exerting one\u2019s efforts to direct one\u2019s will towards good, about the battle with evil feelings and inner dispositions of the soul. Enter by the narrow gate<\/i>\u2014thus the Lord brings to a close the Sermon on the Mount\u2014for 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<\/i> (Matt 7:13\u201314). Not everyone who says to Me, \u201cLord, Lord,\u201d shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven<\/i> (Matt 7:21).<\/p>\n
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<\/i> (Matt 11:12). The apostles, as it says in Acts, constantly taught that we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God<\/i> (Acts 14:22).<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
This labor and effort are impossible without constant self-restraint, without constant exertion of one\u2019s will<\/b>, without a persistent battle with the base, egotistical strivings of one\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 by Archbishop Averky (Taushev) – It is in one\u2019s 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\u2019s … [read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,26,21,67,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-orthodox-christianity","category-orthodox-church","category-theology","category-wisdom"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nExcerpts from the book The Struggle for Virtue<\/a><\/em> by Archbishop Averky (Taushev). (Minor organizational edits to optimize readability and emphasize key points made by Chris Banescu<\/em>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"