Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate
Saint Mary Church - Vancouver - Surrey, BC Canada
"Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,".. Ephesians 1:4
The word "we should" means that there is no alternative for a person to be holy. So, “should be holy and without blame.” Holy, a person should be holy, and without blame. “Before Him in love.” The beauty of this verse is that it explains the path of holiness, or the way of holiness, or how a person can attain holiness when he/she is in the love of Christ. And how a person can be in front of the Lord through love. Love has everything that can make a person holy. If we review together that love, like our father St. Paul the Apostle said in 1 Corinthians 13, we find that love does not seek itself. Love is patient, a person who has love hopes for all things, and has hope in the Lord, and His grace. A person who has love does not vaunt itself, is not puffed up. Love is not puffed up. The person who has love suffers long and is kind. Love never fails. Love has everything that can make a person holy and without blame. To be honest, love is an internal action, which starts from the heart inside, filling the person. It is not an external action. This is a divine action because our teacher St. Paul the Apostle tells us in his epistle to the Romans, he tells us that, the love of God was poured out in our hearts through The Holy Spirit. Thus, the love of God is a grace from Him poured out in the heart through the Holy Spirit which transforms the heart and can cause the person’s nature to be a new one and the person, a glorified one, full of holiness. Therefore, the person will resist all evil and will not be able to tolerate it. The external actions will be manifested one day regardless of whether the person appeared as a saint, but the internal actions will remain. The Lord, to Whom be glory, taught us that from the heart springs everything. That is why, if love, if it is in the heart, you will find that everything springing from him is good. On the contrary, if the heart does not contain God’s love, the person, may it be far from you, will be full of evil, and this evil will spread outward because the heart contains all the thoughts, all defiled thoughts, all lusts, and every bad thing. Love does not have but one way, which is God is the One Who gives it and God gives us this love. That is why we have to struggle together. Whoever wants to be holy has to struggle to attain the Lord’s grace. He who struggles is filled with the Holy Spirit, through prayers, through reading the Holy Bible and studying it, through God’s grace and power, through attending the Divine Liturgies, and continual repentance--any spiritual path that allows the person to be filled with God’s grace and to be transformed to the image of God, which we were created in. These spiritual pathways will allow us to truly be loving people and without blame. Let us work towards love. Let us not leave ourselves to any other way that we think may lead us to the Kingdom of Heaven without love. So, love is preferred over everything and love is everything for us. Let us ask God to pour in our hearts this love which will transform us and allow us to become holy and without blame before Him. Amen. To Him be glory, honor, majesty, and worship from now and unto the ages of all ages. Amen.