everyone. God bless you. Blessed celebration of the Holy Ascension and also of the Holy Fathers of the first ecumenical council in NAA. I have a word of encouragement for you today that I'm entitling never trust yourself. Never trust yourself. This principle that I hope to articulate briefly now for you is fundamental. It is absolutely baseline. It is the foundation upon which we can build a solid life with God, a real Christian life. Without this principle, all that we do is in vain and is just dust, wood, hay, and straw, as St. Paul says, and will just be blown away. But if we get this principle right and we practice it and we make it fundamental to us, that which we invest in will last forever if we never trust ourselves. This is one of the greatest obstacles to making progress as a Christian person, is that we have this deep self-trust. We have this self-conceit that is born of filaa or the love of self, which is the poison from which

our sins spring. We trust ourselves too much; we think too highly of ourselves and of our judgments. Think of that wonderful proverb: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. That, I think, is a very commonly memorized proverb, one that is wise to obtain when you're young. But notice the parallels there: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and how do you do that? Lean not on your own understanding. It's impossible to trust in the Lord with your whole heart if you're trusting in yourself. If you are leaning on your own understanding and you're confident of your own judgments, then you won't be able to trust in the Lord. The Prophet Jeremiah comments on this, as does the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah says, Woe to those, woe to those who are wise in their own eyes. I think that's chapter 5:21. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and the Prophet Jeremiah in chapter

17. I'll read you a beautiful verse, a powerful verse, chapter 17. Cursed is the man who trusts in man and who makes flesh his strength. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. Jeremiah 17:5 and then verses 7 and 8. And again, you hear this comparison that the prophet is making, very much as did Solomon in the Proverbs, the contrast between trusting in oneself, relying on oneself for strength, and trusting in God. Cursed is the man who trusts in man, Jeremiah says, cursed is he, and who makes flesh his strength, who thinks that he or those upon other men he's leaning upon is his strength. And then he contrasts it. The man who's blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord in

everything. He's a tree that is planted by water, that goes down deep with its roots. Trusting in God makes you unbelievably stable. Is stability not something that we cherish? Is it not something that we terribly want and is so impossible to find in our own culture? Of course, this is because we lack depth of root. You are a tree, and you only have these little tiny roots. The slightest wind blows you over, but if you trust in the Lord and you make God your trust, you'll be like a tree with the roots that go down deep to the stream. And you won't fear when the heat comes, and heat comes. You won't fear when heat comes, and you won't be anxious, and you'll never cease bearing fruit. You want to be delivered from anxiety? You want to be delivered from fear? Stop trusting in yourself. Put your confidence in God, your whole trust in Him. So much anxiety, so much instability comes because we rely so much on ourselves, which is a terrible, terrible curse. St. Basil the Great, in his long rules, his famous

monastic Rules full of spiritual principles comments on this very verse from the Prophet Jeremiah and on this principle that we're articulating. He says this: a man who relies upon himself or even upon a person whose Duty it is to provide for his needs and thinks his own activity or that of his associate a sufficient resource for his livelihood runs the risk as he places his hope in Man of falling under the curse which reads cursed be the man that trusts in man and makes flesh his strength and whose soul departeth from the Lord. Now by the words that trust in man the scripture forbids a man to place his hope in another and by the words and makes flesh his strength it forbids him to trust in himself. Either course is considered a defection from the Lord for anyone to place his trust either in himself or in anyone else is to alienate himself from the Lord. Wow, do you see how dangerous this is? This self-reliance, this self-trust born of conceit, it's to

separate us from the Lord God. What a text! I'll end with a word, a very practical word from St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain in his Unseen Warfare. This majestic text on how to succeed in the fight against the devils in 80 principles. He articulates 80 principles, usually broken into these 80 chapters. Interesting, the first one simply says, Except that warfare, spiritual warfare, is basic to every Christian life, and there's no acquiring the kingdom of God without engaging in the warfare. So, that's the general thesis. And then where's, where does he start? What's the first principle? After acknowledging the reality of warfare, this is it. This is step two of the 80 principles in the Unseen Warfare, that we should never rely or place, rely on or place our trust in ourselves. We should never rely or place our trust in ourselves. And then St. Nicodemus gives four basic steps on how to learn to distrust yourself, to never rely on yourself, and instead to always rely on God. Four basic ways he says.

number one: acknowledge your nothingness. Remember what the Lord Christ said: Apart from me, you can do nothing. Not a little, not half the warfare in your own strength, no, nothing. Number one: acknowledge your own nothing. This is also a commentary on St. John Chrysostom's famous dictum: He best knows himself who accounts himself to be nothing. Number two: ceaselessly ask God for help. Acknowledge your nothingness, number one. Step two: constantly ask God for assistance. Be bold in speech. St. Nicodemus says: Be bold in your speech, and time and time again ask God for help, firm in the belief that in the ocean of his compassion, he will give you self-knowledge. He will help you to not rely on yourself and to know that apart from him, you can't do anything at all. Number three: become accustomed to guarding yourself from your innumerable enemies against whom you are in your own strength helpless. Of course, if you develop the humble disposition, if you know your nothingness, and you constantly call on God, he will show you and help confirm

you in that humble opinion, and then you can always walk carefully. You can always walk Independence in faith, relying on God, and that's what it means. It doesn't mean to have an intellectual ascent, so that someone asks you, you say, Yes, I believe. To walk in faith means, practically speaking, you are relying on God. You are leaning upon Him at all times for your thoughts, your words, and your deeds. And fourth, His fourth and final counsel, He says, When you fall into some sin, realize immediately your extreme weakness and the danger of your own self-reliance, and understand that the Lord lets us fall into our sins so that we can know ourselves, so that we can become deeply convinced that apart from the Lord, we can't accomplish anything at all. Those of us who are older, who have, uh, what shall we say, uh, decades of falling and, uh, learning, should know better, especially than the young. It's more understandable why the young often trust in themselves. They don't have the collection of misery and pain that we

who are older have acquired U by the grace of God. We've learned not to trust in ourselves a little bit because we've seen what we are capable of doing. We ought to remember who we are. St. Nicodemus says if you need a dose of reality just for one day at the end of the day think back over everything that you thought everything you said and everything you did and he's certain that you'll be confident the majority of what you thought of what you said and what you did you're embarrassed of you wish you never thought you wish you never said you wish you never did and remember two the most pure virgin where there is no self-conceit there is no trusting in oneself and therefore there is no falling. May the Mother of God pray for us and help us to imitate her life free of self-conceit never trusting ourselves. God be with you. Patristic Nectar Publications is pleased to present enduring love laying Christian foundations for marriage marriage preparation together.

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Never Trust Yourself

Never Trust Yourself