A Quote by Silouan the Athonite
In order to abide in the love of God it is essential for anger and 'hate' to attain their maximum intensity but be directed against the sin that lives in me, against the evil active in me - in me, not in my brother.
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Mindless violence, well let me try to paint it.
Here's the 5 steps in hopes to explain it:
1, It's me and my Nation against the World
2, Then me and my Clan against the Nation
3, Then me and my Fam against the Clan
4, Then me and my Brother, we no hesitation
Go against the Fam until they cave in
5, Now who's left in this deadly equation?
That's right, it's me against my Brother
Then we point a Kalashnikov
And kill one another.
Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel.
God has decided the rules of life, whereby you don't trespass on anybody else's rights, and sin is something that upsets the balance of things. There are three types of sin: sin against yourself; sin against other people; and sin against God. People often sin against themselves and others and misbehave with God, too.
We have to recognize that sin is a fact, not a defect; sin is red-handed mutiny against God. Either God or sin must die in my life...If sin rules in me, God's life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed.
It is no strain of metaphor to say that the love of God and the wrath of God are the same thing, described from opposite points of view. How we shall experience it depends upon the way we shall come up against it: God does not change; it is man's moral state that changes. The wrath of God is a figure of speech to denote God's unchanging opposition to sin; it is His righteous love operating to destroy evil. It is not evil that will have the last word, but good; not sorrow, but joy; not hate, but love.
Given the sin of impiety through which they [the Romans] sinned against the divine nature [by idolatry], the punishment that led them to sin against their own nature followed.... I say, therefore, that since they changed into lies [by idolatry] the truth about God, He brought them to ignominious passions, that is, to sins against nature; not that God led them to evil, but only that he abandoned them to evil.
Is all anger sin? No, but some of it is. Even God Himself has righteous anger against sin, injustice, rebellion and pettiness.
Non-cooperation is directed not against men but against measures. It is not directed against the Governors, but against the system they administer. The roots of non-cooperation lies not in hatred but in justice if not in love.
[Nonviolence] is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil. It is evil that the nonviolent resister seeks to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil.
Taking away the peace of a people, committing every act of violence, or consenting to such acts, especially when directed against the weakest and defenseless, is a profoundly grave sin against God.
I have a deep-seated bias against hate and intolerance. I have a bias against racial and religious bigotry. I have a bias that leads me to believe in the essential goodness of my fellow man, which leads me to believe that no problem of human relations is ever insoluble.
I am discontented because I have not these things which God never yet promised me, and therefore I sin much against the Gospel, and against the grace of faith.
Dear God, help me. Do not forget me on this tiny cinder lost in a galaxy that is lost–a heart no bigger than a speck of dust beating, beating against death, against meaninglessness, against guilt, against sorrow.
Today I love myself as I love my god: who could charge me with a sin today? I know only sins against my god; but who knows my god?
We desperately need to understand something of the magnitude of sin, of evil, and of gross wickedness in this world if we are to appreciate our redemption. God's love, grace, and mercy shine all the brighter against the awful reality of evil. Indeed, the very existence of evil is a powerful proof of God's existence and holiness.
He who devoutly strives to attain wisdom and is on his guard against the invisible powers, should pray that both natural discrimination - whose light is but limited - and the illuminating grace of the Spirit abide in him. The first by means of practice trains the flesh in virtue, the second illuminates the intellect so that it chooses above all else companionship with wisdom; and through wisdom it destroys the strongholds of evil and pulls down 'all the self-esteem that exalts itself against the knowledge of God' (II Cor. 10:5).
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