GOD Wants Your Heart

“Bear in mind that for cleansing your heart from sins you will obtain an infinite reward- you
will see God,

your most gracious creator, your providence. The work of cleansing the heart is difficult, because it is
connected with great privations and afflictions; and therefore, the reward is great. ‘Blessed are the pure
in heart, for they shall see God’ Matt. 5:8.”
+St John of Kronstadt
'The Soul that has known the Lord wants to see Him within her at all times, for the Lord enters the soul
in quietness and gives her peace, and bears silent witness to salvation" +St Silouan
"At the edge of your heart the Lord is standing with a tall candle that burns without smoking or melting.
The Lord is standing and waiting at your invitation, to bring the candle into your heart and enlighten it,
to burn up all the fear in your heart, all its selfish passions and all its ugly desires, and to drive out of
your heart all the smoke and foul stench. At the edge of your mind the Lord is standing with His wisdom
and with His Word, ready, at your invitation, to enter into it and drive out all its foolish thoughts, all its
filthy fancies, and all its mistaken notions, and to erase from your mind all nonexistent images — the
Lord is standing and waiting to introduce His reason, His seals, and His words." +St Nikolai Velimirovich
A Prayer of St Dimitri of Rostov
Open, O doors and bolts of my heart that Christ the King of Glory may enter! Enter, O my Light and
enlighten my darkness; enter, O my Life, and resurrect my deadness; enter, O my Physician and heal my
wounds; enter, O Divine Fire, and burn up the thorns of my sins; ignite my inward parts and my heart
with the flame of Thy love; enter, O my King, and destroy in me the kingdom of sin; sit on the throne of
my heart and alone reign in me, O Thou, my King and Lord.
The Heart is the Battlefield of Our Salvation
What is the heart?, "Thus, as the bodily heart is the center of the body's life, the spiritual heart is the
center of our spiritual life" + Fr Spyridon Logothetis
Where is the heart? "The heart is within our chest. When we speak of the heart, we speak of our
spiritual heart which coincides with the fleshly one; but when man receives illumination and
sanctification, then his whole being becomes a heart". +Fr Zacharias Zacharou
"(God) is the One who has fashioned the heart of every man in an unique and unrepeatable way" +Fr
Zacharias Zacharou.
"It is astonishingly great that God the Father, poured from His Spirit a noetic sensation (noera aesthisis)
or breath to the bodily hearts of those who rightly believed in the incarnate Logos". +St Kallistos
A heart that has been made alive by the waters of holy baptism and regeneration of the Holy Spirit has
the kingdom of God within, "the kingdom of God is within you". Luke 17:21 "Since the kingdom of God is
within us, the heart is the battlefield of our salvation, and all ascetic effort is aimed at cleansing it of all
filthiness, and preserving it pure before the Lord".
+Fr Zacharias
The darkness and desolation of a heart ravished by sin is indeed apalling. In a heart that has not been
purified, "there are dragons and there are lions; there are poisonous beasts and all the treasures of
evil". +St Macarius
"For it is within you, that is, it depends upon your own wills, and it is in your own power, whether or not
you receive it. For every man who has attained to justification by means of faith in Christ, and is adorned
by all virtue, is counted worthy of the kingdom of heaven". +St Cyril of Alexandria
And with the kingdom we receive all the treasures of Grace. "But there is also God, also the angels, the
life and the kingdom, the light and the apostles, the treasures of Grace -there are all things". +St
Macarius
Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the
path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Turn my heart to your decrees, and not to selfish gain.
Turn my eyes from looking at vanities; give me life in your ways. (Psalm 119:34-37)
Prayer of Archimandrite Sophrony of Essex
"Oh Lord, I am weak. Thou knowest this. In fear I seek the way to Thee. Despise me not. Forsake me not
in my fall. Draw near even unto me, who am of no account, yet I thirst after Thee. Take up Thine abode
in me and do Thou Thyself perform in me all that Thou hast commanded of us. Make me Thine for ever
and ever, in love unshakeable.

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“Bear in mind that for cleansing your heart from sins you will obtain an infinite reward- you

will see God,

+St John of Kronstadt

A Prayer of St Dimitri of Rostov

The Heart is the Battlefield of Our Salvation

Prayer of Archimandrite Sophrony of Essex

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